Serpent's Kiss
by phoenixreal
Summary: Cannon Divergent. Gin survives but disappears into the world of the living after Aizen's defeat. He finds himself fascinated with a powerless Ichigo. Ichigo is being followed by something powerful as well as falling apart after two years powerless. His abduction takes Gin to Hueco Mundo to deal with a sadistic Hollow bent on acquiring White's power. GinXIchigoXGrimm
1. A Snake in the Fold

**Serpent's Kiss**

* * *

_Author's Notes_

_From Beverly…With Love_

This is a canon divergent fanfiction. This story takes place after Ichigo's 18th birthday after he has learned to live without his powers. This story diverges from cannon as soon as Ichigo returns to the World of the Living. Ichigo never encounters Xcution and does not learn of his fullbringer powers. Ichigo instead begins to lead a normal life, or so he tries.

Arrancar OCs Property of SapphireTou, used with permission

· Kriya Windthunder

· Kula

· Moab Dali

· Medea

· Zadie

· Dima Entwhistle

· Velocity Kahlo

· Yvette Iommi

· Imelda

· Maxi

· Belinda

Warnings

This is a hardcore yaoi fanfiction. This is rated MA. This contains explicit sexual content. This story includes torture, non-bloody amputation, sexual situations, sexual connotation, non-graphic vore, and other adult themes. The main group Ichigo Kurosaki, Gin Ichimaru, and Grimmjow Jagerjaquez with a side pairing of Yumichika Ayesagwa and a male OC arrancar.

This story is not intended to be read by individuals under the age of 18.

Disclaimer

I do not claim ownership of any part of the Bleach universe or of the Bleach characters. Tite Kubo owns this amazing world; I am simply playing within it. Original elements do belong to me. There is no copyright infringement intended and I in no way make money from writing or posting this work of fanfiction.

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**Chapter One**

_Snake in the Fold_

* * *

He wasn't sure exactly what he thought he was doing. He was supposed to be keeping a low profile. He was supposed to be avoiding detection. He was supposed to be dead, after all. However, here he was, crouched in a tree, overlooking a sidewalk as the boy that had defeated Aizen walked past him without noticing him at all. He was amazed that he had no powers. However, some of his friends did have power. It was lucky he was good at masking his reiatsu.

He'd been watching for quite some time now. He had a hiding place in the world of the living, and considering most people couldn't see him, he was relatively safe. Of course, people like Kisuke Urahara and Isshin Shiba would be able to sense him, and perhaps Shihōin. Other than that, Ichigo's companions, while relatively powerful, wouldn't be able to sense his presence. He fingered the short blade at his waist. Really, why was he so…?

He paused. There it was again. He twirled around and tried to pin down the reiatsu. Whoever it was could mask their reiatsu really well, but now and then, they slipped, and he could get a read on them. He wasn't the only one trailing the powerless substitute shinigami.

He noticed it a month after he escaped from the rubble he'd "died" in. He wondered at first why no one came looking for him. Then he understood. Of course, the one person in the world he'd do anything for wouldn't tell anyone he had survived. She was the closest to his heart, and the one person that cried over his body despite everything he'd done. She knew he'd done it all to protect her. In the end, it was her tears that he regretted seeing the most.

Yes, Gin Ichimaru wasn't quite as dead as most would like to believe.

Gin had many things about him that were sly and slippery; of course, it was simply in his nature. There were many things about him that no one realized. No one realized he was never on Aizen's side. Everyone always assumed he was only what was on the surface. He was so much more. He had stayed in the World of the Living at first just because he wanted to hide. It seemed like a good plan. Then, he'd been lounging in a park one day and saw the shinigami substitute walk by. He had sensed the absence of power. Of course, that made him curious, so he tailed the people that were often with him. Over the next few months he picked up that he'd lost his powers defeating Aizen. He couldn't even sense spirits anymore.

The boy was broken. He saw it. The look on his face was one he'd seen before. He was powerless. He was unable to do the things he'd done before. He was unable to protect those he loved. At first Gin just followed him out of curiosity, of course. He wanted to see what would become of one that had had so much power at the tip of their fingers only to have it snatched from their grip. He wanted to know what that would be like. So at first, for over a year, he simply hung on the edges of his world without interfering. He watched as he turned seventeen and his family celebrated, but no one from Soul Society was around. Gin sensed someone now and then, but he never strayed too close to the other higher reiatsu in the area. He definitely didn't sense the other captains. He kept watching.

Then he started sensing the blips. Strong bursts of reiatsu, captain level or better, but hollow. Arrancar, perhaps? He would never locate them, and could never find an opening garganta. Now and then, he sensed a senkaimon opening, but nothing else. Urahara and occasionally the area shinigami would dispatch threats. For another long stretch, he waited and watched from the shadows. The strange appearances of abnormally strong reiatsu bothered him. With no opening and closing garganta, whatever it was didn't leave. Whatever it was had a capability to mask itself quite effectively.

Gin shook his head. It was the ending of July again. He'd watched from a distance as the ex shinigami gave his friends what he thought they wanted. He watched and felt the presence again. He took off, not catching the fact that the dark haired companion of the shinigami below caught him moving away.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"I don't know, Ishida-kun," Orihime said softly. She was sitting on the grass beside Uryū. "I don't know what to make of him anymore. It…it's been over two years. Shouldn't he have gotten better by now?"

Uryū shook his head. "What can we do? I know what he's feeling, Orihime, the helplessness of losing all that power. But Kurosaki, even more so. He sacrificed everything to save Soul Society and the World of the Living. He gave up so much, and he really didn't get anything in return."

Gin stood far enough away that his presence wouldn't go detected by the Quincy or the woman, but close enough that he could hear them.

"He never leaves home, and when he does, he just…he's sad," she said, sighing.

Uryū nodded. "I know. Urahara has been helping Karin, you know, and Kurosaki pretends not to notice that she can see what he can't. It hurts him a lot more than he'll ever say, I think. Knowing that his father even is powerful. I think he feels useless."

Orihime sighed again and leaned into Uryū's arms. He looked surprised but he put his arms around her. "Ishida-kun, is it okay to give up on something that will never happen?" she said quietly.

He nodded. "Of course, Inoue. Hopeless causes are just that, hopeless."

"Kurosaki-kun will never be more than my friend, will he?" she said softly. "Even after everything he did for me, it was for a friend, not for any other reason."

Uryū swallowed. "Yeah, I'm afraid so, Inoue. I don't think he's ever seen you as more than a friend. I doubt he ever will. Giving your heart to someone that can't accept it will only hurt you. I think…I think sometimes giving up is necessary."

She nodded then turned and kissed Uryū on the cheek, blushing as she did it and turned away, hiding her face. Uryū blinked, surprised.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, still not looking at him.

Uryū put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't be sorry," he said, softly, pulling her arm to make her turn toward him. "I'm not a hopeless cause."

Gin sighed, leaping up and heading toward Kurosaki's house. He didn't sense Isshin nearby so he landed outside the window in the tree to watch inside. Ichigo slammed the door and tossed his books to the floor and opened the window with a violent shove. He growled and flopped on the bed and ran his hands through his hair. Grin frowned and leapt upon the sill to watch closer. It wasn't like he could see or hear him, after all.

He watched as Ichigo reached over and grabbed a spiral bound book and began to do something within the pages with a pen. Gin waited. After what seemed like hours, he shut the book and buried his face in the bed. Gin heard a call for dinner come from downstairs from one of his sisters.

"Not hungry," he yelled, lifting his head and then putting it back down with a sigh. "Never hungry anymore."

Gin waited a while longer and he fell asleep, then he crept inside as the sun began to set. He sat down beside the sleeping form and picked up the book. He opened the first page to see it was a sketchbook. He frowned and saw that it began as images of the people from Soul Society, then arrancar, but never anyone living. He realized quickly he was trying to capture the things he could never see again, the spiritual beings. Then there were hollows, all sorts of hollows devouring souls, and being killed by shinigami. The images became steadily darker and more disturbing as the book continued. Finally, he got to the page he'd drawn when he came home and almost flinched. It looked like he'd been drawing his own shinigami form, but it was twisted and warped horribly, and beside it was a rough sketch of a hollow of a sort that Gin had no idea that Ichigo would know of, White.

He flipped back over the last few weeks and realized that a lot of the hollows resembled the horned vasto lorde hollow without a hollow hole. The same mask, the same markings, the same things. That was odd, he thought. None of the images were touched again after they were sketched and occasionally they were marked with a single kanji. At first, they were marked with kanji for some attribute of the person he drew. Strength, courage, loyalty, but as the pictures warped, they became more and more rancid. Liar, Fake, False, Ruined, Promises Broken, other things like that continued throughout the latter pages. Gin even found a picture of himself among the sketches; he smiled softly because he'd written the kanji for sacrifice and protection on that page. So the boy knew what he'd done. Even the Espada and arrancar were labeled with positive things at the beginning before things began to decay.

He then realized the backs of the pages had notes on them in places. He frowned as he turned the book over and looked the other way. He had thought the boy was in a dark place…but this… He shook his head and put down the book. Taking a huge chance he put a sleeping kido on him so that he didn't wake. He had to hope no one was close enough to sense that.

He put the book down by his head and rolled his body to his back. He'd fallen asleep in his school uniform, not even bothering to change or turn down the covers on his bed. He'd been following his routines enough to know he kept himself busy by taking summer classes. Gin glanced around and saw his dresser and found pajamas inside the top drawer and took them out. He quickly pulled the covers out from under him and then set to removing the school clothes. He pulled the shirt off and saw the remains of scars he'd gotten in fights on his chest. He frowned as his thin fingers ghosted over the ribs that were too pronounced on the boy's body. Was he starving himself?

He unbuckled the belt and the slacks and pulled them off him quickly and then found what he was seeking. He ran fingers down the varying degrees of straight cuts healing on his thighs. They began above the leg band of his underpants, how far up, Gin didn't see, and ended above his knees. The freshest ones were less than a day old, possibly even from that day. The lines were perfectly straight and evenly measured. He frowned and slipped the pajamas on the boy's too thin body. He felt the sudden presence of a heavy reiatsu coming toward him so he was out and gone. Isshin, no doubt.

Isshin opened the door on Ichigo's room and looked in. "Son?" he called, but got no answer. He felt the vague presence of another reiatsu. He frowned and entered the room, looking around. The window was open, of course, it was July, and getting warm. Ichigo was in his bed, asleep. He frowned again, though, because he was in pajamas. Lately, Ichigo had become despondent and reclusive. He knew it, and he knew why, but it was this case that he couldn't do anything about it. He saw his sketchbook lying open on the bed and picked it up. He blinked. Why was it open to this page?

He closed the book and put it on the table and looked out into the darkness. He swore to all that if that snake bastard was alive, and messing with his son, he would kill him for good this time.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Gin became increasingly more worried. He was sensing the strong reiatsu incursions more and more often and it was getting harder to tail the Kurosaki boy without being noticed. He had a feeling his visit several weeks before had been noticed by Shiba. He was watching one morning as he sat and watched Ichigo's sister play soccer. His father and other sister sat with him and he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The boy looked pale, though, and more drawn. He noticed Isshin get up and go to the snack stand. He didn't notice when he suddenly flash stepped behind him.

"Gin Ichimaru," came Isshin's voice. Gin winced. Damn.

"Ah, Shiba-taichou," he said, turning and smiling at him.

Isshin crossed his arms over his shihakuso clad chest. "Kurosaki now. What are you doing following my son?"

"Mah, mah, you don't wanna know how I'm alive?" Gin said, with his trademark smirk.

"I could care less why or how you're alive, I want to know what you want with Ichigo. He's been through enough. He doesn't need anyone from Soul Society messing with his life while he's trying to get back to living it," Isshin said, eyes hard.

Gin snorted. "Living? Is that what your boy is doing? From what I see, he's not doing much good, you know. You've seen what he's doing to himself?"

"That's none of your business. It is my business to help him get through it. When he works through it, he'll be fine," Isshin said, frowning. Isshin couldn't hide the internal struggle at how to handle the fact that his son was cutting himself daily and refused to even discuss what was happening to him.

Gin arched a brow under his silver fringe. "Over two years, Kurosaki, I think he's taking longer to get through it than is good for him. But that's not why I'm here. Someone else is here, someone with hollow reiatsu. I keep sensing it, and it is following Ichigo. I'm just…"

"No, you don't get to say things like that. The only one following him is you," Isshin said. "If I catch you near him again, I will kill you."

With that, he was gone and Gin stared after him. Well, this didn't bode well for whatever was going on. He couldn't tail him with Isshin keeping an eye out for him. He had to hope, though, that if Isshin was keeping such watch out for him, he would sense something else coming for him. He didn't know what else to do. He couldn't chance Soul Society getting wind of him being alive.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Gin's worries seemed to be well founded when a burst of that same reiatsu flooded near him. He was off in a moment. He sensed Ichigo was far in the other direction. This was good, very good. He rushed toward it and dropped down into the top of an empty warehouse. The presence was covering itself again, but he was on the trail now and it wouldn't get away from him this time. He leaped down from the rafters in front of a figure that was moving through the lower level.

"Ah!" came the muttered response and Gin found he was crossing Shinso with Pantera and facing the also assumed dead sixth espada.

"Well, what have we here?" Gin said, locking his gaze on the surprised blue eyes of Grimmjow.

"The fuck are you doing here?" Grimmjow muttered. "Aren't you fucking dead?"

"Aren't you dead?" Gin said, smiling at him, unperturbed by the situation at the least it would seem.

"Fuck you, shinigami bastard," Grimmjow said, trying to disengage his sword from Gin's without success.

"Mah, mah, such a foul mouth," Gin said, dancing around as Grimmjow began to press him.

Grimmjow snorted. "I ain't gonna fight you, fucker. Not here for that."

"What are ya here for?" Gin asked smiling still, stepping back but keeping Shinso up at the ready.

"None yer business, fuckface," Grimmjow snarled, stepping back and holding Pantera up.

Gin looked at him. "No shinigami forces here now, only one lone powerless substitute that you had quite the fetish for, are you here for him? You are the one following him?"

Grimmjow shook his head in turn. "I'm here for none of yer business," he said. "'Sides, looks ta me, you are the one following him."

Gin shook his head and began to respond when they both turned back toward the east where they felt a garganta opening. Gin and Grimmjow both took off toward it at top speed. By the time they arrived, it was still open, and Isshin stood on the ground staring in his shihakuso and Shihōin and Urahara stood near him.

A shadowy figure in the darkness of the garganta looked back with vivid red eyes. Over his shoulder was slung an obviously unconscious Ichigo. He gave them a feral grin and was gone, the garganta snapping closed.

Isshin turned and stared at both Gin and Grimmjow. "It wasn't either of you."

Gin and Grimmjow looked at each other and shook their heads. "Who was that?" Gin asked, turning suspiciously toward Grimmjow.

"Fuck, just because whatever that was took him to Hueco Mundo doesn't mean I know what the shit it was!" he exclaimed.

Isshin shook his head. "I thought…I thought it was one of you."

At the same time, Grimmjow and Gin looked at Isshin and said, "You knew he was here?" They then glared at each other.

"I did. I thought you were each talking about the other when you said there was another reiatsu following Ichigo. I told you both to leave him alone. I thought…I thought that was it. I don't know what that was," he said, turning to Urahara.

Urahara shook his head. "It was hollow, but like nothing I've ever seen. The closest I've seen to that was…White."

Isshin's head snapped up. "White? Ichigo has no power, White isn't there anymore, what does he matter?"

Urahara shook his head. "No, you don't understand, since he's come back, I've sensed it. His power, it is still there, under the surface, dormant, waiting to be activated, revived by something. I'm not sure how to do it myself, or I would have spoken of it sooner. It may be that something that forces power onto him will do it, or it may be something else entirely. I've been talking to Mayuri about a plan to possibly transfer power to him like Rukia did in the beginning, but we haven't gotten approval from the Sou-Taichou."

Gin shook his head. "That doesn't matter, what are you doing here?" he said, turning to Grimmjow.

Grimmjow shook his head. "Look, I'm fucking here because Starrk wanted to keep an eye on the kid, and I don't know what the fuck White is."

Urahara looked at him. "Starrk didn't perish?"

Grimmjow shook his head. "Starrk's taken over Las Noches, runs the place now with those of us that survived. Tier and her girls are there, what's left of the others have gathered there. Lillinette hasn't recovered yet, so Starrk isn't up to his full power yet, but she's mending."

"Can you open a garganta?" Gin said to Grimmjow.

Grimmjow nodded. "Yeah, I can take us to Las Noches."

"Let's go," he said nodding to him.

Before Urahara and Isshin could even say anything, Grimmjow flicked his fingers and opened it. Gin turned to Isshin.

"I wasn't here to hurt him, Kurosaki-san. I'll bring him home."

With that, the pair disappeared into the darkness.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo awoke with a start and realized he couldn't move. He turned from left to right and saw no one and realized he had no idea where he was. It looked like he was in a cave or something. He was tied down on something but he couldn't tell what it was. His wrists were secured above his head, and his legs were both strapped down to something at the ankle, but he couldn't see it because his knees were bent as though his legs were dangling off whatever he was laying on. There was a cloth gag in his mouth.

He looked around but fear began to climb his throat. He knew this place and he had no idea how he was here as a human. He was in Hueco Mundo again.


	2. Venomous Bites

**Chapter Two**

_Venomous Bites_

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Grimmjow and Gin stepped out right in the middle of Las Noches, surprising several arrancar who were sitting around talking in the large central garden. Gin glanced about, more than a little surprised at the changes. The place was different to say the least. The arrancar he could see weren't dressed in the white outfits that Aizen had made them wear, instead they were in some sort of hodge podge of various human styled clothes.

"Well, things changed around here," Gin said.

Grimmjow shrugged. "Starrk and Harribel wanted it to be different from when Aizen was here. I haven't seen a lot of the changes, been in the World of the Living watching that damn brat…" he muttered, rolling his eyes at Gin as he headed toward the rooms where Starrk would be.

Gin just now realized that though Grimmjow looked the same for the most part, his clothes were slightly different. Instead of a white jacket, it was more of a dark tan, and his hakama were also a similar color and style. Before long they stopped in front of a door and Grimmjow knocked. There was a guttural response from inside. He opened the door and was a bit surprised. It was colorful.

"Grimmjow-san, you've returned with news?" he heard from inside. "And you bring Gin-san with you?"

Starrk was laid out, unsurprisingly, on a mountain of pillows. Lillynette lay with her head on his lap, sleeping deeply it would seem, and as they got nearer, it could see that one of her arms was gone, as was one of Starrk's. Both were dressed simply in blue colored yukata. Grimmjow nodded to him as he got closer.

"She woken up yet?" he asked.

Starrk looked down at her. "Not yet. It will take time; we were gravely injured in that fight. We should have perished, but for the shinigami not landing a killing blow. Now tell me, surely the boy hasn't regained his ability already?"

Grimmjow shook his head. "No, that's why we're here. He's here, in Hueco Mundo."

Starrk frowned. "I felt no such presence enter. If he is capable of walking between the worlds, I should have sensed his power, it was great before…"

Gin now shook his head. "Nah, he is here as a human."

Starrk stared at Gin and the Grimmjow. "How?"

Grimmjow shook his head. "I don't know what took him, Gin says it felt like something Aizen had created a long time ago, a hollow he created, but I've got no idea. Whatever it was didn't feel like any arrancar, natural or created, that I've ever sensed."

Starrk frowned, shifting in the mound of pillows. "This is concerning."

Gin spoke up again. "Why did you send Grimmjow to watch the boy?"

"The power, it is not gone, as I am sure you realized. He has great power, it is simply…drained, if you will. I wished to monitor him. This world, what I've made of Las Noches, I want it to stay this way, and your shinigami boy was the only real threat to Hueco Mundo I could sense. One that could bring down Aizen…that is a danger to what I am attempting here," he said. "All I want is a home for us. Nothing more."

Gin nodded. "That boy has a pure heart, dear Starrk. If you were to leave him and his alone, he would never bother you."

Starrk nodded. "I sensed as much, but one pure heart can easily be warped and twisted to another's will. And it seems someone has realized this. Perhaps I should have sent more than one arrancar to watch him…" he said, thoughtfully, stroking the green hair on his lap.

"What do you think they want with him?" Grimmjow asked, sighing. "And how can they even do anything? The kid can't even see spirits anymore; he probably can't see shit here."

The door opened and closed and Gin and Grimmjow looked up to see Tier Harribel coming into the room. "That would be so, Grimmjow-san, if it were not Hueco Mundo. Even a human unable to see spirits would see us here because of the ambient reiatsu around us. So even in human form, he will see. However, he will die quickly here in that form. Humans are not as resilient to the conditions here."

"How do we find him? He has no reiatsu to speak of," Gin said, frowning. "I had trouble tracking him in the world of the living because of it."

"I may be able to get something from Velocity," Harribel said thoughtfully. "I'll return. Will you be leaving soon?" she asked Gin, with a frown.

"Ah, yes, sooner the better, he is not able to defend himself like this, and we know not what this whatever it is will do to him," Gin said. "Are there still food stores?" he asked, turning toward Starrk.

Starrk nodded. "Yes, the kitchens are still stocked, several of the arrancar gained a taste for human food, and as you can tell, clothes, since they've come here," he said with a smile, shifting again. It was then that Gin realized something. He wasn't just missing his arm; he was missing his leg on that same side as well. Lillynette, though, seemed to have both her legs from what he could tell.

"I will go and load a couple packs, Grimmjow will you come with me?" Gin said, turning to leave.

"I'll go find the brat," he said, groaning. "My fault he got out of my sight…" he muttered, following Gin from Starrk's quarters.

A few minutes later found them both packing packs of various food stuffs. Gin looked up when he heard a familiar voice speak his name. He hadn't thought about him in a while, he thought to himself, and just as he turned around he was nearly tackled by a thin flying arrancar grabbing him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Mah, mah, Dima, excitable as ever," he said, straining to stay upright.

Grimmjow just rolled his eyes and continued packing away food and some water containers into the packs. Dima obviously had not changed since he'd gone to the world of the living. Dima Entwhistle had been one of the arrancar that had evolved from a vasto lorde hollow, however, he was found to lack the "killing intent" necessary to become an espada. Dima and Gin had also spent a lot of time very closely while Gin was in Las Noches.

"Gin! I thought you were dead!" he said, excitedly, letting Gin go finally to hop back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"Oi, always overstated," Gin said with his signature smile.

"I've missed you!" Dima said, smiling at him.

Dima was a thin, lean looking arrancar, all sinewy muscle and tone. He was one of the more agile ones, and tended to move with great dexterity and grace. He had very long reddish tinged gold hair, though it was a bit darker than strawberry blonde would have been. His mask fragment sat across the crown of his head like some sort of thin headband. If someone didn't know better, though, they'd believe him to be female based on his face. Gin smiled and looked him over.

"Where in the three worlds did you get those clothes?" he asked, blinking.

"Do you like it?" he asked, spinning around. He was wearing a pair of tight black shorts that stopped above his knees and a large, loose red top that slid off one shoulder and fell down to his hips. He was wearing something underneath it; Gin could see a strap on the one shoulder. It was bright pink.

Gin smirked. "It is very you, Dima."

"So what are you doing here, Gin? Did you come back for good? What are you doing?"

"Shush, now, calm down," Gin said, smirking. "I'm here trying to find someone that was kidnapped to Hueco Mundo, a human."

Dima tilted his head to the side. "A human in Hueco Mundo? That's why you're getting food and water. Why would anyone bring a human here? A human, not a human soul?"

Grimmjow grunted as he hefted the pack up. "That's right, human. So we gotta find him quick. We ain't even sure who took him, but the potential damage is high if whoever it is manages to activate his shinigami or hollow powers."

Dima frowned and shook his head. "What? Shinigami and Hallow powers? A human?"

Gin nodded. "You want to come with us?" he asked. "He could be used against Las Noches, that is what Starrk is afraid of. He is only human here."

"If we aren't too late, Ichigo won't last long without his powers," Grimmjow muttered disheartened.

"Ichigo?" Dima said, pausing as he helped Gin pack the bag. "That boy…the one that defeated Aizen?" he said, looking at Gin suspiciously. Dima remembered Gin talking about him. He remembered him talking about him quite a bit, actually.

Gin nodded, putting the last of some dried meat into the bag and zipping it up. "Yah, and he may not have power right now, but he's still dangerous in the wrong hands."

Dima followed a few steps behind the other two before pausing. "Hey, wait by the exit, we could use a couple other hands, okay?" he said, turning and dashing off.

Gin watched him go. "If you two start fucking while we're out there, I will kill you both," Grimmjow muttered under his breath. Gin snorted.

"That was long ago, Grimmjow-san," Gin retorted with a sigh.

"Um hum, I think you've got yer eye on a different red headed spit-fire this time, don't ya?" he said, turning and smirking at Gin. There was a look in his eye, though, something more than interest.

Gin frowned and started to say something but saw Gin coming back with Harribel's three fraccion. Well, they weren't really fraccion anymore, it seemed Starrk had gotten rid of the structure of Las Noches along with the uniforms. Dima smiled as he approached.

"Harribel agreed that we could use the backup, just in case we ran into something out there," he said with a nod. "And she gave Apacci something Velocity made, it should track a non-spirit in Heuco Mundo."

Grimmjow sighed. "Enough fucking chit-chat, let's go," he said, heading out in the lead with the others following him. Luckily for them, things were calm at the moment. Mila Rose gave the device over to Grimmjow and he nodded. Easy enough, it seemed. It located a source of non-spiritual energy and locked onto it.

"Got something," he muttered, and they started walking toward the signal. At the end of a long walk, they agreed it was time to rest for a short while. Then they were up again and heading toward the source. They were nearing what looked like a cavern system. Grimmjow stopped them with an arm and listened.

"I heard something," he said, glancing at the thing. It said the signal was close. They moved quietly for a while longer and then they definitely heard something. It was screaming.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"I see you've awakened," came a rough voice from behind Ichigo's vision. A second later, he felt the gag loosen and fall away.

"Wha…how can I hear you? You're a spiritual being, I can't see them anymore…" he said. "I can't hear them either," he said, pulling again at the bindings but they were tight.

A cloaked and hooded figure moved around the end of the table or rock or whatever the hell he was tied down to at the moment. "You're in Hueco Mundo. You can see and hear spirits here because of the ambient energy. Even someone like you with no reiatsu at all can see us here," the figure said, and Ichigo could see white inside the depths of the hood and shining red eyes.

"Who are you? What do you want? My powers are gone. I'm worthless to you here," Ichigo said, growling under his breath and laying his head back in defeat. There was no way he was getting these bindings off.

"Ah, I am nothing, but I was named Garandō. And you see, you're wrong there. You are worth quite a bit to me, especially here. I don't care about your silly shinigami power. I want the hollow; I want my kin," it said, and reached a clawed hand out and sliced down the front of Ichigo's shirt, sliding easily through the skin as well.

Ichigo frowned, watching the blood bead on his chest. "Well, he's gone, so you are out of luck."

The figure shook its head. "No, he's in here," he said, touching Ichigo's chest where the hollow hole had at one point opened. He traced a large circle with the razor sharp claw. "So the question is, how do I make him come out and play…I watched as Ulquiorra put a cero through your chest. And you survived. So do I do that again?" he said, holding up a hand and a black colored cero started to form that almost seemed to suck the light in around it.

Ichigo's eyes went wide. "I can't take a cero in this form! There won't even be a fucking body left!"

The cero faded. "True. So perhaps persistent application of pain would be the way to achieve my goal. Instant regenerators are so enjoyable, so we shall begin with dissection of the body. Perhaps the hollow will emerge to replace limbs once I've removed them."

Ichigo blinked madly. "What? No, no, you can't do that this is my human body, it won't regenerate even if my soul form would, you stupid bastard! Stop this!"

The face, if it could be called a face, within the darkness of the hood tilted in a smile. "But it will be enjoyable to me. You will not bleed to death, my sword is fire based. It will cauterize the wound immediately."

"That's not the problem! You can't go cutting pieces of me off!" he screamed at him.

"I can, and will," he said, lifting a short tanto style sword that suddenly started burning bright red.

"No, no, no," Ichigo said as he kneeled beside where his leg was tied to the side of the table he was one.

"Sorry, too late," the figure muttered and Ichigo's stomach twisted.

He felt the heat of the blade coming toward his leg, just above the ankle. Then it was like a sudden flash of heat and pain seared through him and despite himself he let out a choked scream. The bastard had cut off his foot, holy fuck, he thought to himself. He really did it. The pain was nearly unbearable as between the cut and the burning of the wound by the weapon, he couldn't see straight anymore and passed out cold.

He woke some time later and had been moved from the table. He started to get up and coughed when something choked him. A collar, he thought, reaching up and feeling a metal collar of some sort around his neck. He turned and followed the chain attached to the collar to the wall behind him. The table he'd been tied to earlier was in the center of the room, and he didn't see the guy anywhere. He winced as in his moving he jarred his leg. He glanced down, hoping it had been a dream, only to find out it was definitely not. Ichigo whimpered as pain shot up his calf again. The bastard hadn't even bandaged it. He leaned back against the wall with a thump. He closed his eyes, begging the hollow bastard to be there, but like always, ever since Aizen, he felt absolutely nothing.

After a few minutes the bastard came back. "Awake again?"

Ichigo looked away from him. "Don't blame me, if that hollow would cooperate, this would be over," he said, kneeling beside him again. "Now, are you any closer to feeling his presence?"

Ichigo turned back to him and growled. "No! Nothing! You've done this for nothing!" he growled at him.

There was an audible sigh from him. "Unfortunate. Please, do try not to die of shock before I'm done with you, I really, really need the hollow," he said and before Ichigo could even move from where he was sitting with his legs out, he lashed down again with his sword, this time severing Ichigo's leg right above the knee while he was watching.

Ichigo stared for a moment and looked up at him, and he was grinning inside the depths of the hood. "Eventually, I'll run out of bits to chop off and cut your head off, or the hollow will emerge to save himself from dying," he said and Ichigo didn't even scream, he just passed out.

Ichigo awoke the next time when water splashed over him. He sputtered and pushed himself up on his side and yelped at the intense pain that shot up from the remains of his left leg. If he cut any higher, he was going to lose more than his limb.

"Time to wake up again," came the voice. "Anything yet?"

Ichigo shook his head. "Please, stop this, he's not here, he's not here…"

"Perhaps going for the leg first was a mistake," he said. "Too much trauma and not enough pain. I believed that such a major injury would draw him out. Perhaps I was wrong. We'll slow the application," he said, and pulled a small table over with a chair beside Ichigo. "Now, this is much more fun," he said and grabbed Ichigo's hand and slammed it to the table. A cuff slithered up and over his left wrist to hold it in place. Ichigo couldn't pull away or he was going cut off his air with the collar.

"What is it you human's play, this little piggy?" he said, looking over at Ichigo's pale face. "Let us begin with this little piggy. One joint at a time, yes?" he said, pulling Ichigo's little finger away and putting the tanto over the first joint. "Now, the hollow should really put a stop to this, right?"

Ichigo sobbed now. "He's gone, I have no power, stop, please…it won't…" Ichigo ground his teeth as the blade slid through the bone. "He can't…there's no…" The second joint slid away. "Oh kami, stop, anything just stop!" he screamed at him. The last part of the smallest finger fell away. Ichigo could feel blood bubbling up around his wrist where he was trying desperately to pull it out of the living shackle, whatever it was it didn't matter, and it had teeth or something digging into him when he pulled away.

"Keep that up, and my pet will just sever your hand off at the wrist and all this finger cutting won't count," he said, red eyes boring into him. "You can stop it. Bring out the hollow."

"I can't!" Ichigo screamed at him. "I've tried!"

"Then we go to the next little piggy," he said happily, pulling Ichigo's next finger over. "Then when I'm done, we'll go to the next and the next and the thumb, then the wrist, then the elbow, and oh, you get me, right? Then, we'll go to the other side. Starting with toes this time on the leg, and work my way up. And finally, I'll take your other arm, a piece at a time. And if, by some miracle, you're still alive and in this pitiful human form, I'll cut off your head. And if you are lucky, you'll just die."

Ichigo screamed again as he sliced into the first joint, and was babbling completely incoherently when he asked him about the hollow again. He wasn't sure he stopped screaming actually after the second cut into it…and the third he wanted to just pass out. Then his tormenter heard something. He frowned, picking up the blade and leaving Ichigo there with his wrist still attached to the whatever it was. He was light headed, sick, all sorts of things, and he couldn't move without pain.

The shackle holding him into the table was digging deeper into his wrist now, and he could see blood trickling down and pooling under it. Good, he thought. Maybe he'd just bleed to death.

It was no surprise that when someone touched his shoulder he screamed and threw his hand over his head, thinking he'd come to continue his attempts.

"Ichigo!" he heard through the pounding in his ears and he wasn't sure but he thought he recognized the voice. "Break that," he heard as the world faded in and out around him. The pressure was off his neck and now he could feel someone touching his arm where the teethed shackle was holding him.

"The fuck," he heard another familiar voice. He was hearing dead people, so he was sure that he must really be dying then. Then there was a shrill pain as the thing clamped deeper into his wrist and he screeched, flailing to try and use his other arm to get it off of him.

"Stop!" he heard and he felt someone holding his upper body.

"I don't know how to get this off," he heard a different voice, someone he didn't know. "It's a hollow of some sort, Gin, do you have your zanpakutou? Maybe I can cut it and it will dissipate."

There was a moment when it tightened again and he whined loudly then it disappeared and his hand fell to the ground which shot pain up his arm and he cried out again. "Find something, wrap it. I'll use kido to stop the bleeding," he heard and then felt the warmth that came from magical healing and he finally relaxed into whoever was holding him.

"They're gone, whoever they were. I trailed him into the sands, and he just disappeared," came a female voice into Ichigo's fogged mind.

"Ichigo, can you hear me?" that voice again. "I need you to open your eyes?"

Ichigo blinked, struggling with his eyes that didn't want to move. He found himself looking up into perhaps the most unexpected face. "Gin?" he muttered, brows knitting in a scowl.

"Ah, there you are," Gin said with a smile, though Ichigo could see the vivid blue of his eyes under the fringe of silver hair. "I've got you; we came to find you as quickly as we could."

"He…he wanted…the hollow," Ichigo said, realizing he was freezing, and starting to shiver violently. "S-said that he would c-come out...to reg-generate…the limbs…but-but he was wrong…he didn't come…he didn't come…" he said, eyes rolling up into his head.

A long way away he heard his name being called again, but he was so tired and freezing cold, he just wanted to sleep.


	3. Shedding Skins

**Chapter Three**

**_Shedding Skins _**

Gin's first thought was they had to get him back to the World of the Living to the woman. She'd healed Grimmjow's lost arm easily enough. Surely a leg and a couple fingers were nothing. He looked up to Grimmjow.

"Can you open the garganta to the living world?" he asked slowly, looking up from the boy in his arms.

The whole thing had not happened as he expected. They certainly didn't expect to find the thing that abducted the boy to be in the middle of literally cutting off pieces of his body. The hollow or whatever it was fled immediately when presented with their superior numbers and Gin for some strange reason felt a pang of something he hadn't felt for a long time. He had brushed it away. He was on a mission after all. He had to get the boy back to the world of the living or at the very least Las Noches. He ignored the fact that he was perhaps become more than a little obsessed with the previous shinigami substitute.

Grimmjow nodded and then looked annoyed. "I can't. For some reason, I can't open one…"

"Grimmjow!" he heard Apacci yell from outside. "We've got incoming. A lot of incoming."

Grimmjow went to the entrance. "Holy fucking shit…" he muttered and looked back at Gin.

"There's a fucking army of hollows headed this way. And I mean, a fucking army. There have to be thousands of them, and a lot of them are adjunca class. I can't open a garganta, can you find another exit from the caves and try and make it around with him? I have a feeling this is whatever that was…" Grimmjow said, snarling a bit.

Gin nodded. "Are you sure you can handle…" he began.

"Fuck, get your freaky ass out of here, we got this, five of us, all of us arrancar, they don't stand a chance, just might take for fucking ever, so get him back to Las Noches, and see if they can't get him back to that Inoue woman," he said, turning and pulling his sword from his hip.

Dima turned to him and smiled. "Go, Gin. Really. You've got to keep him away from whatever this is."

Dima headed for the opening of the cave but looked back and saw something he sort of wished he hadn't. It was the look the crossed Gin's face when he looked at Ichigo's form. He could see that he wanted Ichigo to live. He smiled to himself. If that was Gin's wish, and if it would make Gin happy, he would do his very best to make sure the human lived and not only that, thrived. More than anything, he wished to see Gin happy no matter what it took.

Gin sighed as he watched the others leave the exit. He took a breath and gathered him up as gently as he could into his arms and started walking slowly further back to find an exit. He could shunpo once he got outside, but there wasn't a way to do so inside the cavern. He moved quickly, though, finding it more difficult to hold onto a body in less than whole condition while he moved. He stopped and shifted his body over his back instead of in his arms, hoping that it would let him move less hindered since he was completely dead weight at the moment. He was careful and wrapped his hand around his arms, keeping the one with the missing digits on the outside, and tucked him so his injured leg was not going to be hurt further as he moved.

Finally, Gin was growing tired and found his way into a small inner cavern. He was no closer to the exit that he could tell. Long ago, he left the sounds of fighting behind him. He gently sat Ichigo down and pulled out a water canteen. He had to get something in him. He'd been missing for nearly two days already by count of the world of the living, so he was going to be needing it desperately by now. Gin was sure that whatever this hollow creature was, it didn't understand how to keep a human alive.

Gin moved to kneel beside him. He stroked his head gently, and spoke quietly, "Ichigo, you need to wake up for a bit, I have some water for you."

Ichigo at least twitched, which was more than he'd done while he carried him. More than once he'd wondered if he'd just died from shock, but he could feel his heart beating rapidly against his shoulders where he held him. Gin dipped a finger into the water and let the droplets fall onto Ichigo's lips. Immediately his eyes fluttered and he licked at the water that was trying to escape him. Gin put a hand on him.

"Shh, calm, calm, there's more," Gin said and pulled him upward enough to put the lip of the canteen against his mouth.

Ichigo immediately tried to grab it but winced when he felt the pain shoot up from his mangled hand. He stopped and let Gin control it and got a few good drinks before he shook his head. He began to cough and sputter a bit as Gin put it away. He panted and cracked open his eyes and looked up at Gin.

"Guess it's too much to ask that I'm dreaming all this," he muttered.

Gin shook his head. "'Fraid not," he said. "But whatever that thing was, it is busy now with Grimmjow and the others I left behind with it."

Ichigo shivered violently, though Gin wasn't sure if it was from fear or cold. "It's terrible. It…it said it would keep c-cutting pieces of me off until the-the hollow came out…"

Gin nodded. "But he's not there, is he?"

Ichigo shook his head. "I begged the bastard, pleaded with him, but he won't come out or he can't. I just…why does that thing think I can make him come back? He's gone, all my power's gone, it isn't coming back. I'm just a fucking worthless and weak human and I'm going to die here now because of it."

Gin settled down beside him. "Mah, I doubt that, boy. You've still got power. Just down deep. Urahara was already trying to figure out how to give it back to ya before you got snagged and drug back here."

Ichigo sighed and nodded, leaning back against the stone wall and felt a shiver take him again. Gin looked at him and frowned. He wasn't entirely sure that Ichigo had even heard what he said. His eyes were wide and dilated, and most definitely unfocused. He was completely uninformed when it came to human bodies. "What can I do?" he said finally.

Ichigo shook his head. "St-still in sh-shock. It's freezing here, you know, never n-noticed it before…you'd think a desert…would be hot." His teeth clacked together harshly in the quiet of the small cavern he'd pulled them into.

Gin leaned over and put a finger against his pulse and winced. He was sure his pulse shouldn't be that high. It almost felt like a small animal, not a human. Gin frowned, and looked around. He had nothing to cover him with, and he supposed by human standards this cavern system would be quite cold. He instead sat down and put an arm around him slowly. Ichigo started, looking panicked for a moment as though he'd forgotten where he was.

"Hush, now, I've got to rest before we move again, yah? Now here, I have nothin' to cover you with, so…" Gin said with a shrug and Ichigo sighed and sank into his hold. He seemed to pass out again, lying limply against his body.

This was perhaps the worst case scenario. Gin was a shinigami, not a human. He had no idea what to do with him like this. A shinigami would have started healing, and his kido would have worked a lot better. Gin picked up the injured hand and unwrapped it carefully. Where the shackle hollow had bit into Ichigo's wrist, it was turning a strange color of yellowish orange. Gin winced, knowing that wasn't right. He turned his hand over and realized that the yellowish color was starting to crawl up his arm, now halfway to his elbow. Frowning, Gin cast a kido over his arm and winced.

"Oh, fuck," Gin muttered, closing his eyes and leaning his head back into the wall with a thump. The wound was poisoned. The toxin was slowly making its way up his arm. He was going to have to cut the poisoned portion off or he was going to die when the poison reached his heart.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Grimmjow hadn't killed so many hollows in a long time. He certainly didn't think the four other arrancar had either. However, they stood over a mountain of hollow corpses, each one looking like they'd fought an army alone. Grimmjow stood in resurrecion and screamed at the top of his lungs.

"We killed your army, you bastard! Show yourself!" As he spoke the three females came up beside him and Dima with them.

They heard a slow clap and turned back behind to see the cloaked figure that had escaped earlier standing in the entrance to the cave. "Wonderful show," he said.

Grimmjow leaped down to stand in front of him. "You ready to fight or are you just going to hide some more?"

A white smile flashed in the depths of the hood. "Oh, I don't want to fight. I want what is mine. White; my kin."

"I dunno what the fuck this white is but if cutting up a human kid is your method, I think you're fucked up," Grimmjow said with a snarl. He was amazed at exactly how angry this had made him.

Again, the almost floating white smile showed itself in the darkness. "Ah, but he's not really just a human kid, is he? Besides, I give him, perhaps another two hours before he dies. The shackle hollow I had tamed…it has very venomous bite. I could save him…well, what's left of him. But you'll have to give him to me."

Grimmjow shook his head. "He's already back at Las Noches. Sorry, don't have 'im."

The smile faltered. "A shame. I'll have to come and get him."

He disappeared as quickly as he'd appeared.

"Fucker!" Grimmjow said, letting his ressurecion go and putting Pantera away. "Let's get back to Las Noches, surely Gin has gotten there by now. That bastard is faster than half the espada."

However, when they got to Las Noches, they found that Gin had not yet returned. Grimmjow took off toward Starrk's room, bursting inside. Starrk looked up from his piled up pillows. "What happened?"

Grimmjow explained what had happened and then shook his head. "I sent Gin with Ichigo back. He's not here."

Starrk nodded. "We may need help with this."

Starrk reached over Lillynette's still head and picked up a strange looking instrument. He pressed a few buttons and an image of one of the shinigami, the captain of the twelfth, Mayuri Kurosuchi appeared inside it.

"What is it?" he said, glancing up at a monitor.

"Taichou, you said to use this in case of emergency, this may qualify, depending on the importance you place on the fact that Gin Ichimaru is alive and here in Hueco Mundo, lost currently, in his attempt to rescue a powerless human Ichigo Kurosaki," Starrk said, pausing to yawn in the middle. There was a silent moment.

"I knew something was wrong, that bastard Urahara hasn't contacted me in a week," he muttered. "I'll bring a group across."

"My thanks, Kurosuchi-Taichou," Starrk said with another yawn. "Grimmjow, please arrange another search party. See if Velocity can be of any further help. I fear I must rest once more. Regeneration is so very tiring," he muttered, lying back in his pillows.

Grimmjow nodded and went into the front area where the others were. Harribel had come out and was speaking with her girls when he came out.

"Grimmjow-san," she said, coming toward him. "Will you rest or go out again?"

Grimmjow shook his head. "Nah, I shouldn't have sent them alone, I should have sent Dima with him at least. I don't understand how he hasn't gotten back yet."

"I can," came a new voice. Grimmjow and Harribel looked up and saw it was Velocity, their resident researcher and scientist these days.

Velocity was the picture of a mad scientist. Her longish black hair was never neat looking; in fact, it often resembled an explosion on her head. She was also fond of bright Hawaiian shirts. Today, she was wearing a blue one with bright pink and yellow flowers covering it. She was a strange sort, even by the standards of those that worked with Szayelaporro. She currently preferred feminine things, however. She went between the two, mostly because she was a hollow that evolved in exact opposition of Starrk. Rather than splitting, she was made up of two separate hollows that had combined: one male and one female in nature. After this, she had been evolved into an arrancar.

"Velocity," Grimmjow said with a sigh. He didn't trust scientist people like her much at all, she'd only been brought in a week or so before he left for the world of the living. "What is it?"

"The caves, that whole system, that's what is wrong with Gin's navigation. Something about them messes with sense of direction and they are horribly easy to get lost in. Normally, knowing what I know of Gin, he should have found his way out easily. However, those caves have some sort of property that interferes with the senses. On top of that, it would seem whatever you are fighting is in some sort of control since you couldn't open a garganta," Velocity said, looking between Harribel to Grimmjow.

Harribel nodded. "So how do we combat this? Whatever this thing is, it was able to summon great numbers of hollows to its side."

Velocity smiled at that. "Ah, yes, but it will be limited to how fast the hollows move. So it will take time to gather the sheer numbers that it threw at them this first time."

Grimmjow nodded. "Makes sense. Do you have any idea what the fuck it wants with this 'White' that apparently is inside Kurosaki?"

She shook her head. "No, that I do not. I cannot tell more until I can test him."

Grimmjow sighed. "Well, nothing to do but wait for the group from Soul Society to get here. You going this time, Harribel?" he said, looking at the blonde arrancar.

"I will. I'll leave the girls here, they've exhausted themselves. Dima is being treated in medical for his injuries. I'll recruit a couple others to our group," she said, bowing slightly and leaving.

Grimmjow sat down heavily. He was not enjoying this. Not at all. Most annoying, there was a strange ache deep in his chest that just would not leave.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Gin was more worried as he watched the lines of yellow start to grow thicker and darker over the next fifteen minutes. How was he going to explain this to him? He was going to cut off his arm now. It might be to save him from dying, but still. He supposed he could put him into a deep sleeping kido and take care of it without him knowing. He couldn't do that to him, though, not without him knowing what he was going to do. He was a bastard, but that was just cruel after the other bastard had sliced him up already. He caressed his head gently and leaned over to his ear.

"Ichigo, I need you to wake up," he said softly.

Ichigo's eyes fluttered open again and he stared up at Gin. He'd managed to maneuver where his head was in Gin's lap and he was looking up at the ceiling.

"Five more minutes, pop," he muttered slowly and tried to roll over, bumping against his leg and yelping as he did.

"Oh fuck, I'm awake now," he groaned.

"Ichigo, I have to tell you something," Gin said, stroking his head again. "The shackle, it poisoned you, look," he said, holding up his arm where the bright yellow streaks were now outlined in red and heading toward his elbow.

Ichigo frowned. "Ah, you've got to be kidding me," he moaned. "I can't win, I just can't," he muttered, looking away from Gin into the cave.

"You know what I have to do?" Gin said, still holding his head with one hand.

Ichigo nodded. "Yeah, I know. I don't know if I'll live through it, but just do it," Ichigo said with a sigh. "Fucking bastard. If I die, at least this will be over with."

"The woman, Inoue, she'll be able to restore you," Gin said with a nod, "Just like she restored Grimmjow. She'll make you whole."

Ichigo swallowed hard. "Yeah, gotta live through it first, why…why didn't Grimmjow just use a garganta?" he said, looking up at him.

"I don't know. That hollow, whatever it is, stopped him from being able to open one. We didn't know why. We just have to get out of here and get you to Las Noches," he said with a nod. "But first…"

Ichigo nodded. "Yeah," he said, looking at the angry red and yellow moving up his arm as he watched. "To the elbow, has to be, otherwise you might not get it all."

Gin nodded. "I'll put a kido on you; I wanted you to know first, though."

Ichigo smiled then, and Gin blinked in confusion. "Thanks," he said quietly just before Gin's fingers touched his forehead. He slumped into a deeper sleep. Gin gently put his head down on the ground and pulled his arm away from his body. He sighed and took out Shinso, hoping that it would work here on a physical human body; after all it was a soul cutter blade, not a flesh cutter. He brought it down in one strong swipe and felt something very strange when he severed the limb. Ichigo's body seemed to be sucking the power from Shinso while it was in contact with his flesh. Gin stepped, or rather stumbled back, feeling slightly dizzy as he put it away. He ripped part of Ichigo's shirt and wrapped the wound. Luckily, it didn't bleed much, but he had expected as much.

Gin sat down, feeling a definite drain on his power as he stared at Ichigo. He felt his own consciousness slipping. He had no idea what that was, but it was almost more than Gin could handle. He'd heard the tales of how Rukia Kuchiki had infused him with her power in the beginning, though later he had his own power to rely on. Could it be done again? Could one sacrifice their power to him like that?

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"What?" Rukia exclaimed as she stared at her taichou.

"Yes, yes, I'm afraid it is true. Kurosuchi-taichou is putting together a group to go to Hueco Mundo and help the residents of Las Noches find him again," Ukitake said softly, a hand on Rukia's shoulder.

"How? What happened?" she asked. The last she knew, Ichigo was doing relatively well in the world of the living.

Ukitake shook his head. "I don't know, but Kurosuchi-taichou is leaving in a few minutes, if you wish to go, hurry. Kuchiki-taichou was asked to send Renji along as well."

Rukia nodded and took off without another word, appearing at the twelfth, followed a moment later by Renji, Ikkaku, and Yumichika. Inside, both Hanataro and Isane had already arrived and were discussing what things to take across with Nemu.

Renji looked at her. "It's true?" he asked.

A moment later, Rangiku appeared, glancing between them. "He's alive?" she asked quietly.

"Apparently," came Mayuri's voice. "Gin is alive, and something from Hueco Mundo that is targeting White, the hollow inside Kurosaki, has taken Kurosaki there as a human. I don't know anything else. However, we should hurry."

Rukia shook her head. "But who called us?"

Mayuri smiled. "Oh, I never told the rest of you. Las Noches was reformed, Coyote Starrk and Tier Harribel turned it into a place for the arrancar, natural and hogyuku created, to gather together to protect each other. They're trying to get Kurosaki and Gin back and have a team waiting to go out when we get there."

Renji and Rukia exchanged glances. "That's a lot to take in," she said quietly.

Renji nodded and followed the others into the building. They looked back to where Rangiku was waiting. "Are you coming?" Renji asked.

She shook her head. "No, I don't think I should. Good luck."

Rukia shook her head. "That was odd."

"If you're coming with us, we're leaving now," they heard Nemu say from inside. They hurried along.

A few moments later they stood outside Las Noches. Yumichika and Ikkaku looked around. "Just like Zaraki-taichou described it," Ikkaku said.

"I'm surprised he's not here," Renji said, looking at the pair.

"He's busy; didn't you notice that some of the arrancar were purified and reborn into Soul Society? Taichou found one that's kept him busy. That Nnoitra fellow he fought," Yumichika said with a smirk.

"Ah," Renji said. He'd seen a few new souls in the training areas that he vaguely recognized from the arrancar over the last couple years. Of course, they were only one soul of the many that had made up a particular arrancar. Some of them resembled the arrancar, others had their personality. "So Zaraki-taichou found the one with that arrancar's primary soul?"

Yumichika nodded. "Just as obnoxious as it was in Las Noches, I guess."

"Enough, come on, we have better things to do than talk over arrancar born into soul society," Mayuri said, leading them into the large building.

An arrancar met them at the entrance and led them into a large open entry area. Rukia recognized Grimmjow immediately, sitting on a sofa looking surly as ever. As soon as they got into the room, he glanced at them and got up slowly and sauntered over, hands shoved into his hakama pockets.

"Well, look who came along. Kurosuchi, you may want to talk to Velocity there," he said, pointing to the researcher who was looking at Mayuri with a bright smile. "Between the two of you, maybe you can figure out what we're dealing with."

"I shall do as I wish, arrancar," Mayuri snarled, turning and yanking Nemu along with him as he went over to Velocity.

Grimmjow nodded. "The rest of you, we'll be setting out immediately. Harribel should be back in a moment with our group. Stick together, this bastard can summon hollows to attack, but he threw a fuck-ton at us already so he'll take time to build up that many again. Gin's lost inside a cavern system that is fucking notorious for fucking with your head. We're going in blind, because nothing works unless Velocity comes through with something that will counteract the problem. Whatever this thing is, it fucks with my ability to summon a garganta. We don't know what else it can do."

Everyone stared at him for a long moment. Hanataro nervously spoke up. "Wh-what is the con-condition of Kurosaki that you know of, Gr-grimmjow-sama?"

Grimmjow looked at him. "Yer a little shit," he muttered. "You must be in the medical group. Well, point blank, this thing's fucked him up. We found our way to where he had him, and he was in the middle of cutting his fingers off. Already severed one of his legs, and had some sort of poisoned hollow on his wrist. The fucker said he was dead in two hours if we didn't give him back to him so he could finish what he started."

Rukia gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Renji shook his head. "What the hells is it doing that for? He's human, right? He hasn't got his power back?"

"This creature thinks he can 'encourage' the hollow inside him to come out if he puts him in enough pain by severing his limbs, we believe," Harribel said as she walked up.

She had three arrancar in tow. Loly, Menoly, and Gantenbainne were all dressed differently than they had been as arrancar. Loly wore a short dress that was covered with paisley print, and Menoly was wearing a pair of capri pants with camo pattern with a t-shirt with holes in the stomach of it. Gantenbainne wore a simple pair of gray slacks and a dark blue t-shirt; by far the simplest dressed of the group.

"He is trying to trigger the instant regeneration that the hollow, White, showed when Ulquiorra put the cero through his heart and 'killed' him. Since he's not in a soul form, we believe he's trying to damage his body enough to force the hollow to surface in order to repair it," she continued. "I've just come from Velocity and your taichou. They've come up with this," she said, holding up a box with a few lights. "They believe it should counteract the effects of the cavern system enough that we won't lose our way inside it."

Grimmjow nodded. "Alright. So five arrancar, and six shinigami. Gin has a pack with food and water, which I'm sure he's needed; Kurosaki's been here two days already."

With that, Harribel and Grimmjow led the group out into the sands of Hueco Mundo, hoping they wouldn't be too late.


	4. Slither

**Chapter Four**

_Slither_

* * *

Ichigo woke with a start. He wasn't sure what he had dreamed, but it scared the living hell out of him. He felt someone grasp him and he started to panic again. He was being held down and he felt a wave of crashing pain cascade over him as the waking world clarified around him. Crashing between reality and the dream world felt like drowning, and he felt like he was choking and being held under by whoever held him. His instinct was to fight, to push and pull and try to get away from whatever it was that was keeping him from reaching the surface so he could just _breathe._

"Mah, stop, you're fine, pet," he heard in a familiar voice. A slight calm descended, and he shook visibly for a long moment.

Finally, he pulled his brain into reality and blinked up into a pair of brilliant blue eyes he didn't recognize for a long moment. What happened? Why was he in so much pain? Why was he with Gin Ichimaru? Why was he so very scared?

_You're in trouble, King._

Ichigo's eyes went wide and he sat up, only to have pain shoot through him like never before. He yelped as the remaining part of his leg hit the cavern floor and he remembered vividly what had happened all of a sudden. It was like some sort of nightmare becoming real around him. He whimpered and almost reached for his leg with the remains of his right arm. He glanced that way and suddenly pain began exploding from that stump.

"Whoa, stop, you're not in any condition for that," Gin said, pulling him back to lie on his back again.

"He…he's there…he's there…" he muttered, staring up at Gin now with wide eyes. "His voice is so dim, and barely there, but I can hear him…"

Gin frowned. "Who?"

"The hollow, my hollow, how's he there?" he said, blinking rapidly and glancing around. "I don't…"

Gin smiled. "I suppose they were right. I severed your arm above the elbow; you sucked some of my power out when I did it. I have no idea how long we've been out but I just woke. Guess he was never gone to start with, boy."

Ichigo's heart beat a rapid staccato in his chest. The hollow was back. Did that mean his power would come back? How could his power come back? He wasn't in soul form. He was in human form, so what would happen if that occurred?

_Fuckin' move, King. Now._

"Gin, we've got to go…" he said, tilting his head toward the opening in the room they were in slowly.

"I don't think that's a good thing right now, Ichigo, you aren't…" Gin started.

Ichigo shook his head. "You don't understand, we have to move, now, or we're done…he's coming."

Gin believed him, but he was honestly still weakened by whatever transfer had happened. He didn't doubt if they encountered whatever that was again, it would end with one or both of them dead. Gin had escaped another death once; he didn't want to have to do it again. He pulled Ichigo up into his arms and stood slowly. He looked at Ichigo's face and knew that he had to be in an incredible amount of pain by the way his teeth were grit together, but he made no noise despite this fact.

"I know you're down here," came an echoing voice through the cavern system. Gin paused but there was no way to identify the direction from which it came. It was almost like it came from everywhere at once. "I want my meal…"

"Meal?" Gin whispered. "He wants to eat you?" he glanced at Ichigo's wide eyes.

"He didn't mention that part before," Ichigo said quietly as he clung to him with his whole arm, tucking his other to his chest and crossing the remains of his left leg on top of his other one to keep it from being against Gin's body. He felt like both sides of his body were burning up. He knew he was still in shock, but he couldn't do much about it. "He said…he was nothing…Garandō he said…he wanted the hollow to come out."

_Dumb ass, king. He doesn't just want to consume you, he wants me, my power._

Ichigo nodded. "He wants to consume the hollow."

"Why?" Gin asked as he ducked through a new opening that he was hoping lead to the outside of the blasted cavern system.

"I…I don't know," Ichigo said as pain shot up his arm suddenly, grinding his teeth hard against each other. "The hollow doesn't have enough power to say much…flashes…that's all I've got now…no inner world yet…I don't know what to do to make it come back…"

"You just need more power infused into ya," Gin said, ducking through a short hallway that was almost too narrow for them. "I can't do more, otherwise I'll be out for the count, and we dun know if your limbs will regenerate or no."

Ichigo swallowed hard against a stab of pain when his arm jarred against him. "Fuck, I had no idea getting something cut off hurt this much," muttered as tears sprung into his eyes. He was starting to have trouble holding his voice back. He was sure that being stabbed by Zaraki in soul form had not hurt nearly this much.

"Human bodies are more fragile than shinigami bodies," Gin said, though he honestly had no idea. He'd been a shinigami for far too long.

"You have no idea," Ichigo said, panting as his leg seemed to be sending repeated shocks of pain through him every time they brushed into a wall. The cavern wasn't high enough for Gin to move him over his shoulders, as it was he had to tuck him close to his body.

"Whatever this system does, it messes with sense of direction," Gin said, pausing at a four way intersection before dashing down a long straight away on the right. "Since that hollow hasn't found us, I would guess it messes with his senses as well. It is bad for us, but also for him."

"Gin, gonna pass out," Ichigo muttered, feeling black edge at his vision. The pain was becoming too much for him to stay conscious.

Gin felt his body go limp in his arms and he stumbled into the wall. He leaned against it for a long moment as he listened. The echoes were gone, so maybe they were safe to go find a place to hide out for a little while. He headed down and ducked into a small opening for a cavern. He moved to sit against the wall the entrance was on in case he looked into the opening. He slid down the wall and pulled Ichigo's body against him. Ichigo was still in shock; he could feel his rapid heartbeat against his chest as he held him tight against him.

He swallowed and tried to cover his body as well as he could with his own. He shifted him across his lap, pulling his legs over his and wrapping his arms around his back, using the arms of his shihakuso to drape down his back. He hoped by pressing his front against his he would keep him warm enough because even he was starting to feel the chill in the cavern system.

After a while he started to drift himself, somewhere between sleep and waking, and he remembered the last couple of years, watching from afar and being unable to speak to or touch the boy as he followed him. He didn't understand it. Perhaps it began when the cocky little bastard stood up to him the first time at the gates to the Seireitei. The determination and drive that the boy possessed even then was almost palatable. He had been somewhat glad that he let him go; though explaining why had been difficult. Aizen's plan was already in the works, and the boy and his friends provided wonderful distraction.

He shifted, tucking the orange head under his chin and thought about it. It really made no sense for him to feel like he had to protect him. Perhaps after the threat to Rangiku was gone, he needed someone else to protect. He wasn't sure why. He sighed and let his consciousness float.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-ooooooo-

Grimmjow glanced back at the party behind him. They'd arrived at the entrance to the cave system. Loly, Menoly, and Gantenbainne had stayed quiet most the trip, mostly because they were wary of the Shinigami that accompanied them. Harribel moved up beside Grimmjow and glanced into the cave opening.

"This is where you found the boy?" she asked, wrinkling her nose as the strange smells from the cavern system assaulted her nose. She winced, her keen sense of smell catching blood easily. "It reeks of blood."

Rukia and Renji exchanged glances while Yumichika and Ikkaku kept watch behind the group. Hanataro hopped from one foot to the other and glanced around nervously. "Gr-grimmjow-sama," Hanataro said nervously. "Is-is it safe to enter?"

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "Come on, see if there's anything this bastard left behind that will help us figure out what the fuck he is," he muttered, lighting a torch and leading the others into the wide room.

They entered and he glanced around. The cave was much as they'd left it, the front portion looked abandoned, and the hollow or whatever it was had used a room off to the side. He lit another torch and handed it to Harribel and led them into the side room from which Gin had left from. He looked around as Hanataro stared at the blood still congealing on the floor.

"From what we know, he had him here," Grimmjow said, pointing to the area they'd found Ichigo chained in. "But, when we arrived, there was blood staining this stone table," he muttered, going over to the large stone slab. There were marks where a chain had been used on it, and a dried smear of blood on the side. "He did some of his cutting here, the left leg, that's the one he removed."

Rukia swallowed hard. "Maybe I shouldn't have come," she said softly.

Grimmjow looked over at her. "Are you his fucking friend or not?"

Rukia's eyes narrowed and she glared at him. "Of course!"

"Are you fucking capable of fighting to protect him?" he said, standing and crossing his arms. "Or are you a liability here?"

"I can fight!" she snarled at him, a sudden rush of cold rolling off her toward him. She had not been idle the last two years.

"Then fucking suck it up, ice princess, and do what you fucking have to do. If we don't fucking find him before this bastard, there won't be any fucking thing left of him. Granted, a fat fucking lot of good you fucking people are to him," he muttered the last and started to turn away.

Renji moved quickly and grabbed Grimmjow's shoulder and spun him around again. "The hell is that supposed to mean?" he growled.

Grimmjow resisted the urge to put Pantera through his throat. "It means you fucking abandoned him when he fucking needed you, fucker," he said instead.

Renji blinked, his hand loosening and Grimmjow rolled his shoulder and stepped back. "That's not true! Seeing us, even in gigai, he…he lost everything for us…we couldn't do that to him! We had to let him move on! No matter how much we hated it!"

Grimmjow turned and stared at him for a moment. "I think you believe that, so I guess I won't slit your throats," he said and headed down the corridor that led out of the cavern in hopes of catching up to Gin and Ichigo. Already, his senses started to dull. Loly and Menoly ran up and followed Grimmjow and Ikkaku and Yumichika, who missed what Grimmjow had said, went behind them. The space was only wide enough for two as it was. Renji followed Gantenbainne silently and Rukia sent Hanataro in front of her, hanging back with Harribel to cover the rear.

"Why does he say that?" Rukia asked as Harribel walked beside her.

Harribel glanced at her and then back ahead. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Why does he think we abandoned him?" she said again, her stomach twisting in the worst way. She had felt that things were not right. She had known.

Harribel looked back at her and sighed. "You left him to his own, in absence of power, he became vulnerable. Grimmjow spent much time watching the boy. What he saw showed him how far such a proud fighter had fallen. His self-injurious behaviors alone…"

"What?" she said, blinking at her and almost stopping in the corridor.

Harribel glanced at her. "You are unaware of the things he did to himself, then," she said thoughtfully. "Sometimes pain is the only way to feel alive when someone has given up hope of every being anything except numb."

They walked in silence for a long moment until word came down that Grimmjow had found something up ahead. They all made their way into a moderately sized room. Renji and Rukia ran to the front where Hanataro was examining something. Rukia blinked and glanced down at what appeared to be a severed arm and hand, a hand short of two fingers.

"Oh kami, is that…" she stared.

Hanataro stood up. "Poisoned. It would appear that Gin-san saw that the poison was spreading from the wound on the wrist," he said. What was left of the limb was almost blackened from whatever toxin had spread through it. "No doubt if he had not severed the limb, Ichigo would have died already from it."

"Can a human survive this sort of thing?" Renji asked the fourth member.

Hanataro shook his head. "As a shinigami, yes, but as a human, I am unsure what could be done. If we can find him, and get him to Orhime, her power to restore limbs like Grimmjow will repair him completely, but he has to survive that long."

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Mayuri Kurosuchi was not sure what to make of the lab he had been shown to as he looked around. "Where is this Velocity?" he called out. He wasn't keen on the other arrancar scientists, and while this one seemed sane at least, he was unsure what to think.

"Up here," came a voice just above him and he looked up to see the scientist arrancar suspended from the ceiling and looking over paperwork.

"What are you doing?" Mayuri asked, curious now.

"Suspension. It helps me think," she said without looking at him, running a hand over her hair, making it even more of a mess than it was before.

Nemu walked up the short set of rolling stairs that sat beside her. "You are suspended by hooks through rings embedded in your flesh," she commented.

"Um-hum," she said, sighing. "I suppose I'll come down, I haven't come up with anything while here," she muttered, grabbing the stair and leaning back enough to set her feet and pull off the hooks. She came down, followed by Nemu, replacing the loud shirt, this one bright blue with a pattern of pink and yellow flowers as she went.

"Now, what may I do for you, Kurosuchi?" she asked, looking over as two small, whitish figures with pure black eyes bounded in and chattered at her. "Wait, no, go on, I'm busy," she said, shooing the two strange looking arrancar away.

"You should try that, Nemu, it would be interesting to test the results," he said, looking at her. Nemu, as usual, stared back at him. "Though I'm sure you would mess it up again," he said rolling his eyes.

Velocity shook her head. "Kurosuchi, really, for a creation of your own, you should be less abrasive. She really is quite the accomplishment."

Mayuri glared at her. "You know she is my creation?"

"Of course," Velocity said, rolling her eyes. "Very close to perfection, yes?" she said, glancing over her. "Not that we can ever achieve perfection. There is always room for improvement, no matter how perfect it may seem," she said, sighing and opening a door where the green haired child-like Nel sat on a table kicking her feet back and forth while her two fraccion stood on either side of her.

"Velocity!" she said with a grin. "You fix Nel?" she asked.

"Maybe, I can help a little bit, at least a temporary fix to give you your adult form back because we could use your help," she said smiling at the child version of the powerful ex-espada.

Mayuri stood back and watched as Velocity administered some sort of injection to her. Velocity looked at her. "Nel, listen to me, there needs to be a trigger to bring your power back. And I think I know what to trigger just that. You friend, Ichigo, he's in trouble," she said gently.

Nel's child eyes went large and she stared at Velocity for a moment. "Itsygo is in trouble?" she asked, and as Velocity had hoped, the crack in her mask started to knit together with the artificial protein she'd invented. She wasn't sure how long it would hold, but if she could regain her form.

"Yes, Nel, he's hurt badly and needs you," Velocity said, stepping back a bit.

"Nel help Itsygo," she said, frowning and there was a pop accompanied by a gust of smoke. When it cleared Nel stood in her adult form once more. Velocity smiled.

"Nel, I don't know how long it will last, but you…" Velocity didn't finish because the buxom espada was already out the door with her two fraccion following her at a dead run.

"Impressive. A compound to repair a fractured mask of an arrancar," Mayuri said with a nod.

"She is driven to help her friend; she will be useful in the hunt, especially considering her resurreccion form. Now, as for what is hunting the human boy," she said, walking in and nearly tripping over the two white child-like figures. "Ah, Lumina, Verona, off with you!" she fussed at the two strange looking arrancar. "Go restock the cabinets!" she said, shooing them off away from her.

She took Mayuri into another room and opened a file on a machine she had. "See, there are these spikes in the ambient energies of Hueco Mundo. Something surged, and sucked in a lot of energy to use for itself at this point," she said, pointing to a graph. "And at this point. The first coincides with crossing back into Hueco Mundo from the World of the Living, and the second coincides with the fight with Grimmjow. Whatever it is, it has the ability to draw on the ambient power of the realm. Do you have the information of this 'White' that Aizen created?"

Mayuri nodded and the two began to look over everything. "So this White also utilizes the power of someone else against them, and attempted to turn shinigami into hollows…" Velocity said. "This wasn't his first attempt?" she asked.

Mayuri shook his head and went into detail on the creation of the Visored using the hogyuku. After a long few hours she sat back and rubbed her hand over the back of her head, revealing for a second the remains of her mask which lay under her hair. Mayuri arched a brow but said nothing. It looked like another mouth on the back of her head.

"So could this be a prototype?" Velocity said suddenly.

Mayuri shook his head, "That's ridiculous that there…might…be…" he said. "Of course. He couldn't come up with something as ideal as White on the first try, there had to be other trials between the Visored and White. It makes no sense to go from one point to the other with nothing between."

Velocity nodded, turning to her console and inputting the parameters. "If this thing is a prototype, so a failed version of White that could be why it wants White so badly… Hollows consume souls, so perhaps it isn't fully formed, somewhere between real and it thinks that if it consumes the fully formed version of itself, it will become fully realized," she said, punching in the numbers rapidly.

"It must have encountered White when Ichigo defeated the fourth espada, it was drawn to the power it exuded, it was a massive display," Mayuri continued. "It honed in on the signature of power similar to its own, and saw what it could do…"

Velocity nodded, pushing away and using an opposite console. "So by that thinking, if we can track the power signature, we should be able to track it," she said.

"The brat has no power," Mayuri muttered.

"If he has no power, Kurosuchi, how come I've got two matching power signatures on here?" Velocity said quietly.

Mayuri came and leaned over to look. One of the blips on the screen was bright and looked to be between Las Noches and the other one. The other one barely registered, but it was just there, inside the cavern system the others had gone to.

"I was right," Mayuri muttered.

Velocity turned to him. "Right?"

"I said that the whelp might regain his power over time, or if something injected power enough to reactivate his expended power. We were planning a way to reactivate his powers already," he said slowly, standing. "That means that Gin's zanpakutou has come in contact with him, that's the only way we found power could be transferred to a human."

"So, he can suck power out of a zanpakutou?" Velocity said, looking confused.

Mayuri shook his head. "No, it would have to be when it pierced his body…"

Velocity nodded. "A transference of power from one soul to another. That makes sense. Was it not the way he gained his initial abilities?"

"You've heard of that?" the scientist asked her.

"Of course, Aizen had detailed records on the boy. He had quite the obsession with him, and of course my predecessor knew all of those things. He was quite knowledgeable if incredibly insane," she said, smiling up at Mayuri. "Of course, I believe some amount of insanity is necessary to take the risks that we do."

Mayuri fixed her with a rather creepy grin. "Oh, yes, indeed."


	5. Serpentine Visions

**Chapter Five**

_Serpentine Visions_

* * *

Gin came to awareness with a start.

"I smell you," came an echoing voice through the cavern system. Gin grimaced because Ichigo was still completely passed out on his chest.

Gin quickly checked the arm, which the bandage was stained red, but it didn't seem to be bleeding overly much. He shifted him slowly to the floor beside him and started to pull off the makeshift bandage from his leg when Ichigo came awake with a start. Gin gasped and put his hand over Ichigo's mouth and winced as he tried to push Gin away with his good arm.

"Shh, stop Ichi, quiet, he's close again, we've got to move," he said, trying not to hold his mouth too tightly.

Ichigo's eyes were wide and he nodded. Gin smiled. "I've got to change this," he said, ripping another strip off his haori and wrapping the wound again. When he looked up the pain in Ichigo's face was obvious. He looked ill and there was really nothing Gin could do. Unless he could get his sense of direction and get out, he wasn't really sure how long Ichigo would survive these conditions. He didn't particularly like the look of either wound, but whatever that thing was interfered with kido as well it seemed. Either that or whatever power had been sucked from him still hadn't returned.

Ichigo nodded and tried not to watch as he finished bandaging him. Finally he sighed. "Leave me, Gin," he said breathily. "Really, I don't know, but I'm getting weaker and he's only after me…"

"No, mah, mah, you are the self-sacrificing type, aren't you?" Gin said, hefting Ichigo up into his arms without much effort.

Ichigo grimaced as they ducked through a tight corridor. "You're one to talk," he said quietly, trying his best to hold onto Gin to lighten the work the shinigami had to do.

Gin smiled as he moved, ducking under a group of stalactites. "So it would seem you uncovered my intentions, huh?"

"I get it, protecting those you love," Ichigo said, starting to sweat with the effort of bearing the pain without saying anything. "You love Rangiku, so why didn't you go back for her when you didn't die?" he asked, nearly yelping as Gin skidded to a stop at a rock fall.

Gin smirked and leaped down the drop easily. "I love Rangiku, of course, Ichi-pet, but she's moved on from me many times over. We were never meant to be together, you see," Gin said, pausing to listen to the stillness. "I've had my fun with others along the way as well. I cannot seem to find someone to fill my needs, if you wish to know," he said, ducking down under an outcropping and bolting for a light source. He stopped and paused when they found it to be luminescent moss.

Ichigo shook his head. "Yeah, I know what you mean," he said with a sigh.

"So, we've got all the time in the world, tell me about the cuts on your legs," Gin said as he finally got enough clear space to shunpo a few times. He felt Ichigo's hand tighten in his kusodo.

"I don't know what you mean," he said softly.

Finally, they found another open area with only one entrance. Gin slipped inside and slid down the wall. At least three hours of running around this system and he was about to pull his hair out. He wasn't able to navigate, and every time he thought he was going the right way, he ended up going in circles in the place.

He sat there a moment with Ichigo on his lap then clasp his hand over Ichigo's whole thigh tightly enough to make him wince. "I've seen them, Ichi-pet," he growled into Ichigo's ear. He was tired and annoyed and definitely not in the mood to listen to Ichigo lie about what he was doing to himself.

Ichigo's breath quickened, though he wasn't sure if it was fear that Gin knew his secret, or the fact that he was squeezing his thigh like that. "It…I…I can't explain it, Gin…" he said finally, feeling a rush of blood to his cheeks. He felt dizzy though and laid his head back on Gin's shoulder, feeling exhausted. The flush to his cheeks was hot, really hot, he thought.

"Ichi?" Gin said, reaching up and putting a hand against his face. He felt the heat before he even touched his cheek. "It's getting worse," he said more to himself.

Ichigo swallowed hard. "Infected, probably, is…is there yellow or white in the wounds?"

Gin nodded. "Yes, a yellowish tone to the leg wound."

"That's it, an infection set in, damn that was fast…or is it? How long have we been here?" he asked, really not knowing.

"I'm not sure, time seems distorted here. A couple days, I'm not sure," he said softly, brushing his hand over Ichigo's warm brow.

Ichigo sighed. "I wanted to feel something. Anything. I felt like I was dead. I even thought about trying to kill myself, you know, so that someone from soul society would come and perform a konso, and then I'd go back as a spirit, and maybe if I was lucky, I could become a shinigami again," he said. "Cutting myself kept me from just killing myself," he said softly.

Gin blinked, not expecting him to actually reveal so much to him. "And the book with the drawings?"

Ichigo snorted. "You saw that?" he said, smiling a bit. "It was a way to capture what I'd lost, but then I just hated it, hated everything that was gone, and hated everyone who treated me like some sort of invalid just because I'd lost it. My father, my friends, they all had these whispered conversations behind my back, and they avoided even the smallest things about Soul Society or hollows. I'm not so damn delicate they can't even talk around me," he said softly and nuzzled into Gin's neck. "Cold," he muttered, his teeth starting to chatter.

Gin stripped off his own kusodo and wrapped him up in it and pulled him as close as he could. He didn't know how long they sat, hours, it seemed. Finally, after it seemed Ichigo slept for a while, he woke up screaming.

"Ah!" Gin exclaimed at the screaming writhing human in his arms. "Quiet, please, Ichi-pet, quiet!" he said, wrapping one hand over his mouth to quell the sounds and holding him tightly around his ribs with his other.

After a minute, Ichigo's breathing slowed and he stopped clawing at Gin's hand clamped over his mouth. Gin, busy listening for their pursuer, didn't notice at first until he heard a low whimper from Ichigo. He looked down and realized he was fully awake and calm now, and he could let go.

"Sorry, Ichi-pet," he said quietly, pulling Ichigo up against his chest again.

"S'okay. Nightmare, is all. M'sorry," Ichigo mumbled nearly incoherently.

"Shh, not your fault, pet, don't act as though it is. How's the pain right now?" he asked, glancing again at the opening.

Ichigo shook his head dismally. "Water?" he asked.

Gin grit his teeth. He had to remember to give him water, though he was sure food would be too much. Luckily, he still had one of the skins he'd brought. He snatched it out of the bag and held it for Ichigo to drink from.

"Ichi-pet, I am so sorry for this. Everything is Aizen's fault, wouldn't ya know it?" Gin said as he slipped the skin in his bag again. "Aizen made that hollow inside you that this one is after. And now I know what this one is," he said with a sigh.

Ichigo shook his head slowly. "Watcha mean? You know?" he asked as Gin threaded his arm through the kusodo and wrapped the other sleep around the stump of his missing arm tightly.

Gin sighed. "Aizen messed things up with Shinji's group, and Urahara took them and saved them. But it wasn't like he could perfect something like the hollow inside you, White, or Shiro as you call him, in one go. It took time, and I'm sure that this one is one of those early versions of White that he banished to Hueco Mundo when they failed him. It should have been consumed by a wandering hollow, but somehow it wasn't. Somehow…it survived, and now it is trying to seek you out and…live? I don't know what it wants."

Ichigo sighed and turned his face into Gin's neck. "Nuh," he muttered and Gin could feel his eyelashes fluttering against his throat. "Thank you," Ichigo muttered again, sliding into another sleep, though this time, thankfully dreamless.

Gin held him and felt something strange come over him. That was so much more than he expected from Ichigo. From anyone, really. He was not deserving of such things, at least that's what he'd convinced himself of long ago. Rangiku was out of his reach, and everyone else he'd been with was a simple matter of convenience. He'd never cared what happened to them. Even Dima, who he had more than a slight dalliance with, had never made him feel like he needed to keep him safe. He'd been glad Dima was alive, but if he hadn't been alive, it wouldn't have bothered him.

Other than Rangiku, he had never cared who lived or died. Yet here was, holding a half dead human, who may or may not be able to regain shinigami powers again, even though the smartest thing to do would be to drop him and get himself to safety. Sure, he'd have to deal with a possibly insane and power mad hollow, but that was easier than this game of hide and seek at severe disadvantage.

He shook his head because he couldn't do that. He couldn't leave Ichigo. Then it hit him.

He didn't want Ichigo to die.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"This place is a pure maze," Yumichika said, turning and staring as they stopped at a four way intersection. "I normally can find my way with ease, but this…"

"These caverns," Grimmjow said with a sigh, glancing down one passage and then the other. "Like everything in this bloody place it makes you lose your way. Stay with me."

Ikkaku glanced at Yumichika and then at Grimmjow as they tailed him down the corridor. "You know how to navigate this place?" he asked him.

Grimmjow shook his head. "I know how to navigate without relying on some ridiculous sense of direction in my head. I've been in Hueco Mundo too long for that shit. Look," he said, pointing to a ruddy smear on the wall. "They came through here; I can smell Ichigo's blood. That's what I'm following, see look, they rested here."

They came into the open cavern where Gin and Ichigo had first rested after Gin had severed his arm. Grimmjow snorted and headed back down following the smell. "That bastard better not die. I still have to kick his ass."

Ikkaku smiled to himself. "Ichigo is a formidable foe. We fought when he first entered Soul Society, before he fought my Taichou."

Yumichika smirked. "I don't think Taichou has ever enjoyed fighting someone as much as he enjoyed fighting Ichigo."

"I don't suppose he beat the little bastard, did he?" Grimmjow snarled. "Fuckin' humiliating to be beaten by that brat."

"Are you still sore from losing to him, Grimmjow-san?" Yumichika said glancing at Ikkaku.

Grimmjow stopped and turned to them. "Well of course. I don't lose, especially to kids like him."

Yumichika waved it away. "Finding a foe that can defeat our taichou is difficult. Even though Ichigo defeated him in battle, Taichou enjoyed it greatly and looks forward to another fight. Win or lose, he loves the fight. He wasn't bothered by his defeat, he only wanted another go round. He still does, every time Ichigo comes to Soul Society, Taichou tries to get him to go another round."

Grimmjow snorted and followed the smell for a while. They paused to collect themselves in another room. Hanataro examined the bandages that Gin had left behind. He looked at the others. "He's not bleeding badly, but the wound is growing infected, steadily. If he isn't seen to soon, the body will go into septic shock…"

"We better hurry, then, we're getting closer. The smell is fresher now than it was before. Let's move!" Grimmjow said, pushing the others to keep moving.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Nel moved almost faster than her friends could keep up with her. Finally she'd found her way to where she sensed a collection of energies. She asked the other two to stay outside the caverns so she could fight full out rather than worry about them. Both readily agreed to that plan. She ran into the place without much thought except she had to help Ichigo. He'd done so much, cared about her even though he didn't have to do it. No, she had to help him.

Before long, she felt herself being drawn toward something powerful. She had no idea what it was, but she knew it was exactly what she was seeking.

"Well, another arrancar here for a lowly human?" came a voice in the darkness.

"He's not a lowly human. He's my friend and I will protect him," Nel answered, looking around her.

"I am not going to let anyone stand in my way to becoming what he already is," the voice continued, and before long Nel could see a figure below her in the open area. She jumped down and summoned her resurrecion as she dropped. Rearing back on her back legs she locked eyes on the red orbs of whatever this thing was before her.

"What are you and what do you want with Itsygo?" she yelled, frowning at him.

He laughed. "I don't want the stupid human. I want the hollow."

"What do you want it for?" Nel said, circling the hooded figure.

He began to laugh and then sent several adjunca to attack her from the darkness surrounding them. After she defeated them she turned back to him. "What do you want it for?" she screamed again.

"To consume it, stupid female. To become whole!" it yelled and several more hollows, these menos, came flooding out of the shadows.

"I won't let you!" Nel said, and trampled a couple hollows and headed toward the hooded figure. She managed to surprise him enough to knock him backward into the wall and knock the hood it wore away from his face. What was underneath was a surprise, even for Nel.

He growled, an entirely empty grin that looked more like a skull without teeth showing clearly now. The skeletal, disjointed mask seemed to be the only thing solid on his head. His eyes were black pits with globes of red within. Around the mask, the light seemed to be pulled into it. It was literally a gaping nothingness that sucked in the light around him. He pulled the hood back up angrily.

"Garandō," Nel whispered as she stared at him. When Aizen had first created the earliest arrancar, he had told them of Garandō. The hollow of nothingness and ending; Aizen's second failure.

"I will become whole! I came before him, and I shall remain after him! I deserve to live rather than this half existence of surviving off the ambient energy of this desolate place. No, I will consume him, and we will become one, and I shall become greater than he ever could have been!" he screamed and lifted a sword for the first time and went after Nel himself.

All around them the cavern system reverberated. Several places began to shake and loose rockfalls went sliding away, and ceilings began to collapse. Gin leapt to his feet and grabbed Ichigo and started to run. If the place was caving in, maybe he could find a way out. He dashed about here and there, and avoided falling rocks and debris. Finally, he saw light. Could it be? He had to hope. The air felt fresher, so he thought perhaps…

Gin had never in his entire life been so happy to see sand in his life as he fell to his knees outside the broken wall he'd come out of.

"Ichi-pet, we made it," he said, glancing down and finding him more than unconscious. His color was completely drained and he was breathing in short, shallow breaths. "Ichi-pet?" he said, picking up his head. "You gotta say something, we're out…"

"Gin!" came a familiar shout. Gin looked up to see Grimmjow and several others climbing out of the broken wall he'd come from. "You sly bastard, bringing down the cavern was dangerous, but effective," he said.

Gin shook his head. "I didn't do this," he said, standing carefully cradling Ichigo's body against his chest. "We've been running non-stop, he keeps finding us."

Rukia ran forward and gasped out loud as she brushed a hand over Ichigo's head. Renji came up beside her and shook his own head. "How is he?" Renji said looking up at Gin.

"Not good," Gin said. "He's been passed out for a long while and I cannot wake him."

Hanataro came forward and looked at him. "Get him to Las Noches, it is our only hope of saving him at this point," he said, looking up at the ex-taichou.

Gin nodded, taking off at his fastest shunpo. The others followed, and behind them, they heard a bellow of frustration followed by a tremendous crashing sound. None knew that Nel had been sent out, and none had any idea that the other hollow could sense Ichigo moving farther away from him. His prize had been stolen from his grasp, and his fury was great.


	6. Anti-Venom

**Chapter Six**

_Anti-venom_

* * *

Gin wasn't sure if he was going to make it. He saw Las Noches, but he heard the hollow howling in the distance, but someone was stopping it. Someone was fighting it off and keeping it busy. Gin was grateful for that. No one had managed to catch up with Gin yet because he was putting everything into his speed. There was a moment when he was sure that Ichigo had stopped breathing. He couldn't worry about it though, he had to get back. He saw the gates and shot through them without a second thought and heard them slam shut behind him. He didn't know what measures they had taken but he hoped they were enough.

Inside the outer gate he stopped, leaning against the heavy wall, listening and looking around. The gates had been rebuilt, and a solid dome had been erected over the top complete with the illusion of a world of the living sky above them. Starrk and the others had been busy making Las Noches a true fortress to protect themselves from any outside threat. He hoped that it would be enough because this thing was not going to let them go.

"You won't escape me in your tiny fortress," came the rough, ringing voice. "I will have my completion! I will wait until you are all stifled and dead if I must," he called.

"This way," an arrancar appeared beside Gin and led him toward the medical ward.

Within a few moments the rest of the arrancar and shinigami had returned, leaving a sand storm behind them as the hollow seemed to control the very world of Hueco Mundo. Grimmjow stood on top of the outer wall and inside the field that protected them watching as a fully released Nel came in just before the gate slammed down against the onslaught of wind and sand. He glanced at Dima and arched a brow.

"I think we pissed it off," he said. Dima nodded slowly, watching through the fortified areas of the wall.

Grimmjow shook his head. "That thing is fucking scary. I don't know what the hell it will do if it gets what it wants from the brat."

"Destroy everything it can," Dima said solemnly, looking out as the sound of gathering hollows began to filter into the dome. "You don't honestly think something like that wants anything else?"

Grimmjow shook his head. "Nah, that thing wants destruction, that's it. I'm headed to medical to see what's up. I hope Kriya knows enough about humans to handle this…" he muttered.

Grimmjow shoved both hands into his hakama's pockets and headed through the mazes of hallways to get to the medical wing they'd set up. Of course, now that they actually had someone in charge that cared about medical issues and wanted to treat injuries rather than let them die, they'd found a team, mostly among the outcast arrancar that weren't vicious enough to serve as fighters.

Kriya Windthunder had taken over and organized the area. At first it had just been a hodgepodge of various medical supplies and bandages that they had thrown together as they found them. Kriya was a female arrancar, but most didn't realize that unless they knew her well. She tended to wear suits and ties and was almost as tall as Grimmjow. She was a good medic, though, and had entirely learned how to channel her resurreccion power into a unique type of healing kido. Her ever present assistant was Moab Dali, a male arrancar that dressed entirely in black fancy suits. Moab was very quiet and timid most of the time.

It was Moab that was standing outside the room wringing his hands when Grimmjow came up and frowned. He could hear Kriya speaking loudly inside and the door opened and she shoved Rukia, Renji and Gin out of the room into the hallway.

"Out! I can't work with you in here!" she announced, shaking her head at them. She sighed and ran a hand over her brassy colored hair that was accented by the spikey mask fragments over her skill. "Your small medical shinigami and I will do what we can. Stay out, you two are cleared. Gin, you stay here, I'm not done with you yet, Grimmjow, you as well. Do not leave; the others will be able to triage you. Moab, get the others from the research ward; we're going to need everyone's help. Bring the female medical shinigami as well. I'll need to confer with her."

She swept back in and Grimmjow saw Hanataro staring after them, slightly intimidated by the tall arrancar. The darkly clad Moab bowed his purple haired head and skittered off to find the other medics. Grimmjow arched a brow and looked at the three shinigami.

"Well?" Grimmjow said with a half smirk. "I see she kicked your asses out pretty quick."

Rukia and Renji exchanged a look. "We just wanted to see how he was…" Rukia said.

"Go on and help deal with the bastard that's trying to break into Las Noches. You'll be of more use out there. I have to see to my injuries before I can go back out, or Kriya will have my ass, and as you can see, you don't want to be on her bad side. Bitch will tie you down to keep you in bed if she has to," he muttered, obviously having been on the receiving end of Kriya's medical interventions.

Rukia and Renji, who had escaped their encounters relatively unscathed nodded and headed off without another word. A few moments later, Moab came back through with Isane and three other arrancar who went in with them. Gin watched for a moment before he swayed on his feet, nearly stumbling into the wall. Grimmjow, without thinking much on it, reached out to steady him, frowning.

"You okay?" he asked, brow knitting.

Gin shook his head. "I guess I'm still weakened by the power Ichigo took from me. It was like his soul was sucking my very shinigami core from me when I severed his arm."

"I still can't believe you cut his arm off," came another voice from behind them.

The pair looked up to see Ikkaku and Yumichika come into the hall. Both looked to be no worse for the wear. "Ikkaku and I got sent down for a check over," Yumichika said with a nod at the two of them. "Kurosuchi-taichou doesn't want anyone in less than peak condition. I think he just wants to try out some of his experiments if we are injured."

The door to the main medical bay opened and a shorter female arrancar came out. When she spoke, her voice was extremely high and childlike, in complete opposition to her extremely curvy adult appearing figure. She had greenish and yellow markings over her face and at first glance, her mask appeared to be a pair of eyes sitting on her temples. "Kriya said to see if any of you needed medical assistance, I'm Medea."

"Taichou sent us to get the okay to go on wall duty for a while," Ikkaku said nodding. "We were out in the sands, but we weren't injured."

Medea took a moment to look them over and cast what appeared to be a diagnostic kido over each one of them. "You may return."

She turned to see Gin leaning against the wall. "You, however, are not well."

Gin shook his head, standing up. "Mah, I'm fine." Just as he spoke, he wobbled a bit.

"You are still suffering the effects of the power transfer," she said, her voice squeaking a bit when she spoke. "Come on, you as well," she said, looking at Grimmjow who looked like he'd been through a warzone. Kriya said patients only from now on in here and I believe both of you will be here for a few hours at least."

Medea led them into the large main medical bay. There were four bed/tables set up and she put Gin into one and Grimmjow on the other. The larger area was curtained off further back and they could hear Isane's voice as well as the robust voice of Kriya. Gin kept looking over as he felt overcome suddenly by the pull of exhaustion and decided to lay back. Grimmjow refused to lie down and sat instead, blood still running from several possibly mortal wounds. Medea disappeared into the curtained area and then came back out with another arrancar, this one male by appearance, who was wearing very neutral clothing. However, she had a very elegant looking mask fragment around her neck in a frill. She was very thin and wiry in appearance, and her eyes had a wide set.

"I-I-I'm Zzzzz-zadie, remember me?" she said, struggling with her own name. "I-I-I'll t-t-t-take ca…care of y-you," he said to Grimmjow.

Grimmjow sighed and nodded, knowing Zadie already. A lot of the others had made fun of her for her stutter, just like they had Medea's high pitched voice. The pair of them had been like Kriya and not considered good enough for the likes of the main ranks of the arrancar army Aizen had been working on. Medea went over to tend to Gin. For a long time the pair of them sat in silence as the arrancar buzzed around them. Finally, Kriya and Isane emerged from behind the curtain.

"Well?" Gin and Grimmjow said nearly in unison as soon as they saw them come up.

Kriya sighed. "I am doing what I can, but kido…the damage that the creature inflicted, I can't heal it with my abilities, and your shinigami's kido does not seem to help. It may have something to do with whatever field this creature emits that is stopping us from using garganta and senkaimon. We've given him some pain relievers, but until we have access to kido or my healing, there's not a lot I can do yet. I've provided fluids and infection reducing medicines as well. He is currently sleeping, and rest is going to be the most important thing for him right now. I am going to leave the small shinigami with him so I can go research human anatomy in the library and see if there is anything else I can do for him," she said, nodding and leaving with Isane and Moab on her heels.

Grimmjow flopped back onto the bed and let the pain in his own body take him for a moment. Sometimes the only thing to hold onto is pain, but that dulled as Zadie gave him something to aid his own healing.

Zadie smiled. "N-none of our p-p-pow-powers will help the injuries to h-hollow g-g-gave y…you, s-s-s-sssorry," she said, smiling at him.

Medea sighed. "I believe rest is the only recommendation, Gin-san. I would say that there is no real treatment for having your power syphoned like this."

Gin nodded. "Figured, but I guess…you know…that…" he muttered as his eyes slipped closed. Medea patted his shoulder and covered him up.

She glanced at Grimmjow. "He needs to rest, so I gave him a sedative."

Grimmjow nodded and then his eyes went wide. "Wait, you little bitches…you…gave…" he muttered as he too slipped into unconsciousness.

The two female medic arrancar sighed, shaking their heads. They knew well and good that neither of them would have rested without being knocked out.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Velocity stood inside what had become the command center for Las Noches. She frowned as she watched the screens around the "bubble" as they called it. All around the perimeter, hollows were slowly gathering, and the just kept coming. Menos and adjucana were attacking the outer wall defenses, with very little luck at this point. None of them were very powerful. Smaller hollows were trying to dig through the walls and get into the main part.

"There are groups beginning to mass together," Mayuri said as he stood beside her.

Behind them on the other side of the round room, Hallibel and her three consorts were looking over the screens as well. "They're beginning to organize themselves without that hollow telling them what to do directly."

"Garandō," came Nel's voice as she entered the room sullenly.

The others looked up at her. "Garandō?" Hallibel asked.

"That hollow is void, complete emptiness, even. I cannot describe what I saw. It is like a nexus of nothing trying to exist," she said, frowning. "It will not stop with simply gaining Itsygo's power. It will continue to consume everything until there is nothing left except its vast emptiness."

There was a long silence as they thought over the truth of that statement. "Giving up Ichigo to it isn't an option anymore," Velocity said finally.

Nel glared at her. "It was an option?"

Velocity shrugged. "Of course, because it is the easiest solution to the problem. It was not the solution that would have been used, but an option nonetheless. One has to be objective about the situation, and if it saved everyone here, it would be viable, but it is quite obvious that this hollow, this Garandō, will not stop simply with consuming the other hollow's power."

Nel glared at her still, not liking the idea that giving Ichigo to that thing was ever a thought. "What do we do then?"

"Well," Mayuri said, sighing to himself. "This hollow interferes with transference between the worlds. We cannot open senkaimon or garganta now that it is in close proximity to Las Noches. I've also been informed that anything that is injured directly by this creature is not able to be cured by healing kido or the methods used by arrancar. Ichigo's wounds have remained despite their efforts."

"I believe we should send out disruption teams," Velocity said thoughtfully. "With some of my experimental weapons and devices. This is a good opportunity to test them."

Mayuri nodded. "Nemu!" he called, summoning his lieutenant from the shadows. "Go out and put together small teams of arrancar and shinigami. Disrupt these larger gathering spots of hollows. Return immediately if there is an appearance of this Garandō."

Nemu nodded and left immediately. Velocity handed Hallibel a device. "It's a reishi detector. It might help locate this hollow."

Hallibel took it with a nod. "I'll help Nemu with the teams."

Renji and Rukia had come up to find out what they could do when a pair of arrancar passed them to speak with Velocity. Renji was getting used to the very eclectic tastes that these arrancar seemed to have here. One of the arrancar, the taller one, wore layers and layers of sheer material and appeared to be female, but Renji was quickly learning that assumptions of female and male were also rather…fluid around here. She had a pair of what looked like feather earrings but Renji by now could tell they were mask fragments. With her, she had a shorter arrancar, with a crop of white-blond hair sticking out everywhere on his head. When he walked by he turned his head nearly backwards to look at Renji and Rukia, and Renji saw the bone circle around his right eye. Renji glanced at Rukia at that.

"Imelda, Maxi," Velocity said as the pair walked up. "I'd appreciate your help with the assult, would you like to get an assignment?" she asked.

"Whoo," Maxi said, nodding.

"Of course, anything we can do to help," Imelda said, nodding. "Dima said that you were in need of as much assistance as you could find."

Velocity nodded. "I could use a couple of the quicker arrancar like you two to run messages. I need hourly updates from the medical bay, as well as updates from the wall on how well things are working out there. I think Dima is currently out with a scout group."

Imelda nodded. "Sounds good, right Maxi?" she asked, looking at him.

"Hoot," he said emphatically and followed Imelda out of the room to check in with the infirmary first.

Renji glanced at Rukia. "Did he just hoot?"

"Yes, Renji," she said with a sigh.

"That's creepy, the way he turns his head back like that," he muttered as he waited for Velocity to let them know when the other group got back for them to head out to the sands.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo woke slowly as though swimming through thick gel. He felt drained of everything, but there was a presence he hadn't felt in a very long time.

_Yo, King, what's up…your boyfriends are bitchy, ya know…_

It was distant, but there. Sort of like something far off in the distance but he felt it. It was there. He groaned and opened his eyes slowly. He immediately heard two familiar voices close by in what sounded like a heated discussion.

"No, we cannot just run through Hueco Mundo and hope that we escape the field that's stopping you from opening a garganta, that is not…"came Gin's voice.

"Offer something else, idiot shinigami, if you are so smart. The only way to get him to the woman is to get an opening between the worlds. And your people can't help on that end either," Grimmjow's voice now.

"The taichou is working with your researcher, they will do something," Gin continued.

"Our best bet is to distract this thing and outrun its power. I can engage it again, and you run through the sands with him until you can use your power," Grimmjow said.

"That won't work; opening a senkaimon from Hueco Mundo isn't as simple for us as opening a garganta is for arrancar. I can distract the hollow, if that is the case, and you can run and get him…"

Ichigo sighed. "Can you two asses stop arguing over me when I'm right here," he said loudly, reaching up and rubbing his forehead with his remaining hand.

Within a few seconds, the curtain around Ichigo's bed pulled back and both Gin and Grimmjow stood and stared at him. Ichigo stared back.

"You look like shit," Grimmjow said.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well you don't look fresh either, idiot."

Gin smiled despite his attempts to stop himself. "Mah, mah, you look better than you did. They gave you medicine for the pain, has it helped?"

Ichigo nodded, lifting the partial arm he had left and staring at the bandaged end. "Yeah, can't feel it or the leg right now. Still not feeling well otherwise, but I can't feel the wounds."

"Do you still sense your hollow?" Gin asked, frowning.

"Yeah, actually, he woke me up. Said you two were bitchy," he said, yawning already tired despite having just woken up from a dreamless sleep.

Grimmjow and Gin exchanged a look but said nothing. There was a rumbling sound nearby and Ichigo's attention shifted to in and he looked at the two of them. "What was that?"

"Um, the hollow's launched a full assault on Las Noches," came Kriya's voice as she came into the bay, looking over Ichigo's bandages. "Seems it doesn't think it's very fair that we won't hand you over."

Ichigo swallowed. "Why don't you?"

Silence descended for a moment before Gin shook his head. "That's ridiculous; we wouldn't give you to that thing to devour you…"

"That would be something dumb shit Aizen would do," Grimmjow interrupted Gin and crossed his arms defiantly.

Ichigo sighed deeply. "But it wants to destroy Las Noches to get to me, shouldn't you prioritize all these lives over mine…"

"It wouldn't matter," came another voice. All those looked up to see Starrk, limping somewhat as he entered the room, still missing his arm and shoulder on one side. "This thing, Nel called it Garandō, I remember it well when Aizen came to us, a failed experiment of great power. It is nothingness and void and it will not stop with gaining your power. It will destroy everything it touches. It cannot be allowed to do that. No, this thing it is not to get your power, Ichigo. It cannot."

Ichigo stared at him. He was getting used to seeing shinigami and arrancar that were supposed to be dead, so he wasn't surprised. "So what do we do?" Ichigo said.

"We give you access to your power," Starrk said, smiling gently. "You will be the only creature that can counter what it is."

"How?" Grimmjow asked, frowning.

Starrk smirked and looked between Gin and Grimmjow. "That's where the two of you come in."


	7. A Sleeping Leviathan

**Chapter Seven**

_A Sleeping Leviathan_

* * *

Yumichika and Ikkaku slipped buck in through the small entrance back into Las Noches. Both were looking worn and tired as they came in leading several arrancar. Harribel was waiting in the bubble to receive their reports. She looked up as the pair of shinigami came into the room.

"There are a lot of them, increasing almost exponentially," Yumichika said, sighing. "We disrupted several gathering locations with some of Velocity's gadgets. I'm not sure it is doing much good because they just reconvene after we're gone," he said, setting down one of the spirit bomb throwers down on the counter.

Hallibel glanced at Starrk who had fallen asleep again in the corner. As she was the second, it didn't matter. "You should both take a rest. I'll have one of the medics on we've got on standby take you." She turned and yelled out for said medic. "Kula! Take the shinigami to the rest quarters. Remain with them to ensure there are no lasting effects of being exposed to this hollow's powers."

Kula came up and bowed to both of them. Yumichika smiled as he spoke because he was quite lovely. He was a very pretty boy, his very long light pink hair pulled up in two high ponytails on his head. There was a small bone fragment that was reminiscent of a lotus flower across his head, and he wore a bell-skirted kimono, it looked like. The colors were intricate in the dress, pale blues and greens, and accented his delicate features.

"Yes, please, follow me, masters shinigami," he said, keeping his eyes away from their faces.

Yumichika and Ikkaku exchanged a look and followed the arrancar into a large room equipped with a pair of lush futons. Yumichika flopped into one of them, sighing deeply while Ikkaku began to rummage in the small kitchen like area until he found some cups and sat them down on the table and started pouring drink from his sake jug.

Kula stood by the door, fiddling with his fingers and looking everywhere but at the two shinigami. He jumped when Ikkaku yelled across the room.

"Yo, you want a drink?" he asked.

"N-no, no…I'm…I'm here for you if you need something," he said, reaching down and straightening the skirt without looking directly at them.

"Ikkaku," Yumichika said from his reclined position on the futon. "I think this delicate little flower is scared of us," he said, seeing Kula glance at him quickly then looking away. "Why is that, lovely? A beautiful thing like you shouldn't have such a sad face."

Kula looked up and swallowed. "You're all powerful. I don't want to mess up, I…I don't know what you'll do to me," he said the last almost in a whisper.

Ikkaku looked at Yumichika. "Hey, we're not gonna hurt any of you, you know," he said, sitting down on the futon almost in Yumichika's lap.

Yumichika took Ikkaku's cup and sipped it daintily. "Come, sit down, pretty."

Kula looked hesitant but slowly walked over to where the two were intertwined on the futon. "You…you are together."

Yumichika smirked, twirling his finger in his hair idly. "For many long years," he said, leaning in and nipping at Ikkaku's neck.

"Baka, stop that, I'm not an exhibitionist," Ikkaku muttered, patting Yumichika's face.

"Far too exhausted anyway by the looks," he said, patting Ikkaku's back.

Kula stood and watched intently from his position not sure what to do. "Um, I can go if you want, I don't…I don't think there's a danger in you having any adverse effects, so um…"

"Nonsense," Yumichika said, smiling. "Come, sit down. And tell us why it is such lovely people as us frighten you so."

Kula looked worried at first but finally came and sat down beside Yumichika, perching on the edge of the futon and trying not to touch him. "I just…I was working under Lord Barragan, and he…he was rather strict. So now I worry."

Ikkaku looked thought for a moment. "Yeah, that espada that took Soi Fon's arm…" he said. "He wasn't a good seeming guy," he said thoughtfully.

"He was worse to work under," Kula said, eyes turning distant. "He would punished the others often, cutting down those that displeased him in a moment, I just tried to not be noticed. He would make sure we all knew what would happen if we displeased him," he said hollowly. "We didn't dare break his rules, and we followed the set ways they had of doing them, and always followed our superiors, no matter what they said to do because it was way of controlling them…us…"

Ikkaku and Yumichika exchanged a glance and then Ikkaku handed a cup of sake to the arrancar. "Here, have something to kill the pain in your mind for while," he said as he passed it over.

Kula drank it and realized that the shinigami weren't like he had thought. He accepted another cup of the strange tingly drink and felt a bit tired. He felt exhausted and relaxed and he slowly slipped down on the futon and felt someone's fingers combing through his hair. He blinked and looked up into Yumichika's striking purple eyes and he smiled at the shinigami. Yumichika whispered shh, and continued to thread his fingers through his pink hair as he fell asleep there.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"Get them through!" came the yell from the hatch they were using to get in and out of Las Noches. Hanataro was running beside a makeshift litter being pulled by a couple of arrancar. Renji and Rukia slid in behind them with Rukia holding up Renji.

Ichigo came to full wakefulness in the medical bay when he heard the commotion. Gin and Grimmjow moved into the area with Ichigo as the other four beds quickly filled up. "What happened?"

"One of the teams got hit pretty hard," came Hanataro's voice. "Dima's legs are pretty messed up, but unlike you, we'll be able to heal him," he said, looking somewhat sheepish at the admission.

At the mention of Dima's name, Gin stood up a bit. "He'll be healed, though," he said, hoping that there would be no lasting effects.

Kriya came through, pulling the curtain around them. "They will all be fine. You, however, Kurosaki, need to remain resting and not worry on them. I cannot accelerate your healing at all, and I can help them."

Ichigo started to protest but then heard Renji's voice. "I'm fine!"

"Renji, stop it, that adjunca nearly tore your arm off, let Isane help you," Rukia said with an exhasperated sigh.

Ichigo looked up to Gin's worried face and over to Grimmjow who was still healing himself. "You should just let me go out there," he said quietly.

Both Gin and Grimmjow glared at him. "Shut the fuck up, Kurosaki," Grimmjow said, sighing and heading out of the curtained area.

Grimmjow looked up to see a couple other arrancar talking to Kriya. "You're good, go give your report to Starrk, please," she said and turned back. Grimmjow jogged to catch up with the pair, a couple of arrancar he knew in passing.

"Django, Chillin, wait up, I'll come with ya," he said as he came up even with the pair.

Django was a plain appearing arrancar, on the shorter side, but stout. His hair was neat and light brown. Around his nose, though, his mask fragment looked like a series of points going around it. He pulled out a rolled smoke from his pocket and Grimmjow smirked at the sweet smell that came off the smoke. He remembered Django as having not been good enough for the main ranks of the arrancar due to his severe agoraphobia. Without a rolled smoke, he couldn't handle being outside. The mole arrancar looked at him and sighed.

"Long time, no see, Grimmjow," he said.

"Yeah, how have you been?" he said, falling into step with him.

He shrugged. "Be better when I'm back underground. But Chilin and I have been putting a bit of a dent in some of their little gathering areas out there."

Grimmjow glanced at Chilin, who was even shorter than the already short Django. He had a pair of red markings that went down his face and his mask set on either side of his head, looking like a set of jaw-like horns.

"Yeah, just going to give a report to Starrk-sama," Chilin commented, nodding.

Grimmjow smirked, still amazed that Starrk was able to command anything. Of course, everyone knew that despite his sleepy appearance, he was quite the strategist and only wanted the arrancar to be happy.

"Alright, stay safe out there in your underground digging. Couldn't force me underground," he muttered, waving and heading back to the medical wing to make sure everything was okay there.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Yvette sat outside Urarhara's shoten and sighed. She couldn't seem to open a garganta at all right now, and inside, she knew Urahara couldn't get through to Hueco Mundo with his own means either. She wasn't very familiar with many people here except for Urahara, but she recognized the dark haired human that was coming up the path to the doorway. That had to be Isshin Shiba. She stood at he approached.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, eyes narrowing at the arrancar before him.

"I'm Yvette Immoi. I got caught here getting supplies for Las Noches and cannot return until their situation is resolved," she said with a sigh.

Isshin stared at her for a moment. She was an olive skinned arrancar he had not met before, shorter than he by several inches, with short dark green hair spiked all over her head. Yellow markings feathered out underneath both her brown eyes. Isshin recognized the feathered gorget around her neck as the fragments of her mask and not just jewelry.

"Why can you not return?" he asked, brow furrowing as he saw Urahara coming out of the shoten. "Why can she not go back to Heuco Mundo and why are you still here? You were supposed to leave yesterday to help them with things."

Urahara sighed. "I am unable to open a portal, Isshin. And Yvette, as you can see, cannot open a garganta."

Isshin frowned. "Why?"

Urahara shook his head. "Whatever the hollow that took Ichigo is, it has the capability to control hollows and the very landscape of Hueco Mundo. It can block the use of portals into the area that it is in."

"Can't we go into Hueco Mundo in a different location?" he asked, beginning to get visibly agitated.

"Isshin-san," Yvette said, smiling at him gently. "Please, if we are to attempt to open any portals at this time, there is no way to tell where they will open. We could be days away at full sonido or shunpo from Las Noches, and waste more time than waiting for them to defeat this creature. I do believe they will; do you not, as well?"

Isshin sighed. "No one there is going to be able to counter that hollow. It was far too powerful. Was Soul Society able to send anyone else?" he said looking to Urahara.

Isshin had done nothing but worry since his son had been taken. He had sat both the girls down with Urahara and explained everything to them, as well as with Uryū, Chad, and Orihime. Considering they had experienced the strange bursts of reiatsu as well, they were unsurprised with the fact that it was a hollow. However, the fact that this creature had come for Ichigo and taken him away was hard for them all to handle.

Isshin felt like he had failed everything in the moment he watched his son disappeared. He'd thought without his power, he wouldn't be in danger and he could stop worrying about it. He'd hoped that his son would get over losing his power. He'd hoped so many things that had never come to be. He was heartbroken and he blamed himself for everything that had happened.

Urahara shook his head. "Kurosuchi-taichou and Renji-san are there, but Soul Society cannot breech Hueco Mundo any more than we can. Access to the Dangai is possible, but beyond that, the wall between it and Hueco Mundo is impossible to breech…unless…" Urahara said, trailing off and looking into space.

"You have that look, Urahara," Isshin said, frowning.

Urahara smiled. "I think that I might be able to get us through. Come on, it will take some doing, Yvette, I'll need your hollow reiatsu as well. Between two captain level shinigami and one powerful arrancar, and a little technology I've invented, I might be able to get us through…" he said, swirling around and into the shoten. Isshin glanced at Yvette and shrugged.

A few hours later, there was what appeared to be a functioning portal in Urahara's basement. "We've got one shot, and we're going to use Yvette's power over the garganta to breech the barrier, so we have to stay close," he said as he nodded to Tessai who channeled kido into it to stabilize it.

They jumped through together and hoped they didn't end up somewhere they really didn't want to be.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Everything was quiet for the moment. He could see Hanataro had fallen asleep in the chair while the others were sleeping in the beds. Gin and Grimmjow had gone off with Starrk somewhere several hours ago. Ichigo swallowed thickly as he swung his leg over the side of the bed and used his one arm to steady himself. He honestly had no idea how he was going to manage this with one arm and one leg, but he'd do it. He looked around and saw a staff leaning against a nearby wall. He thought that might do what he needed. He used his relatively good balance to teeter over and grab the staff with his good hand. He winced, expecting to feel something when he fell into the wall against his stub of an arm. He smiled. At least the pain relief worked, he thought to himself as he steadied himself, wrapping his arm around it and using his hand to steady himself.

It took a few minutes but he managed to use the staff to steady himself as he hopped through the room. He glanced over and saw Dima laid out, a glow of kido surrounding him. He couldn't see how he was doing but he'd heard Gin say his legs had been mangled. He looked over and saw a couple other arrancar also sleeping and being healed. Renji was sleeping, no doubt by force of kido, with Rukia sitting beside him asleep in the chair. His arm was wrapped and blood had steadily seeped through the bandages already.

"I can't let this go on," he whispered to himself.

_Stop being an idiot, King_ rang in his head.

Ichigo managed the door without waking anyone, or at least he thought he had, when he looked back and checked. He slid the door closed and didn't see the pair of dark eyes that fluttered open in the dark. He didn't hear Renji growl under his breath either and toss something at Hanataro to wake him up either.

Ichigo figured there were worse ways to end his life. Granted, he'd thought of plenty since he'd lost his powers. He had learned quickly that there were many ways to die. The thought was comforting, rather than scary, though. He had actually come to the conclusion he was simply going to live without thinking of his life as important, and if he died, he died. He wouldn't take his life, but if the things he chose to do killed him, then that was okay too. He stopped and panted, leaning against the wall. This one had been painted blue, it seemed, when it used to be white when Aizen was around. Being human sucked, he thought to himself for the millionth time since he lost his power.

It took forever, but he found his way to something that looked like the wall to the outside. He was really wishing he knew how to navigate this place better. Honestly, he didn't know what he was thinking, doing this alone. With one arm and one leg. He sighed, bashing his shoulder into a doorway and steadying himself with the staff. He blinked. This was not outside, that was for sure.

Well, it looked like outside, but he knew it wasn't. It was a beach. Well, it was an almost constructed beach. The wall behind him was visible, but above looked to be an illusionary skyscape like other areas in Las Noches. There was water that went off into the distance. He briefly wondered if this was a lake that went outside the walls or if the walls encased the entire thing, thinking that he might be able to swim out.

It looked like they were almost done with this area. The sky appeared like a world of the living night sky right now, and there were rock areas that weren't covered with beach sand yet. The sand was real sand, not Hueco Mundo's white sand, either. It looked to have come from the world of the living. He could see where they were constructing seating areas, benches, and chairs for them to enjoy the beach area. There was a pier further down and he thought he could see fish jumping in the water.

He sighed. Now he was really turned around and not sure where to go. He could be right in the middle of Las Noches and nowhere near the main wall. The place was frankly enormous and meant to be a maze when Aizen had controlled it.

"Dammit," he muttered just as he felt a massive burst of reiatsu and his eyes went wide because he hadn't felt reiatsu in so long. That meant it was probably a resurrection of one of the espada, and the only one…

Ichigo turned just in time to Grimmjow throw the door open in full resurrection form with a furious look on his face. He swallowed because he was actually a little more afraid of Grimmjow at that moment than the thing that wanted to eat his soul.

"Grimmjow, um, it…I'm not…" Ichigo stammered and before he could blink he was pinned up against the wall beside the door and staring into cerulean eyes that were practically on fire with anger.

"You fucking baka, you fucking self-sacrificing idiot! Just how the fuck did you think your weak ass would get out of Las Noches when you don't even know how the hell to get to the outer wall? You could have wandered around here for days, you stupid bastard! You could have completely gotten lost in here with your fucking nearly nonexistent reiatsu and never been fucking found, you goddamned idiot human!" he growled out in Ichigo's face.

Grimmjow was holding Ichigo up against the wall with both shoulders, his claws pressing into his flesh but not cutting into him. "You fucking go out there with that thing, you die. You don't save anyone, you fucking idiot, and you might doom the rest of us to death. So stop and fucking think, dumb ass!" he said, jaw tight and Ichigo's eyes fell.

"I know…I know…I thought…I thought if I tried…I might feel better. All this because of me, always because of me. My mother, my sisters, Orhime, everyone gets hurt because of me…" he said, trying to hold onto his composure. "I just wanted it to stop."

Grimmjow forced his breathing to slow down and looked up to see Gin come into the room. He locked eyes with him, and he nodded slowly.

"You stupid baka!" Grimmjow said and set him down on his leg and moved his hands from Ichigo's shoulders to cup his face.

Ichigo's shock was almost physical as he stared at Grimmjow's face as it softened. "What…" he muttered.

"I fucking went to the world of the living to protect you because I wanted to, baka. I went because I knew that something would realize one day that you were still one powerful fucking shinigami. And I wanted to make sure you fucking lived until then," Grimmjow said, his voice nearly purring when he spoke. "I watched you and I wanted to slice open every fucker from Soul Society for abandoning you. My fucking rage turned into something else. I hated you because I wanted you, fucking hell. I figured it out," he muttered and moved slowly toward him, lips nearly touching Ichigo's, waiting for permission.

Ichigo, more shocked than anything nodded and felt Grimmjow's hands tighten on his face and into a viciously passionate kiss unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He hadn't even thought about something like this. Then, as if the mind numbing admission from Grimmjow wasn't enough shock, before he disentangled his tongue from Grimmjow's, he felt someone sucking a biting kiss on his neck. He gasped reaching up with his hand to feel smooth, fine hair.

"Mah, much sexier than I thought," Gin said, moving his lips up his neck to nip at his ear. "G-gin?" he muttered.

"Hmm, we talked," Grimmjow said, holding Ichigo up with one of his hands.

"Seems that Grimmy here had a little crush on my Ichi-pet," he muttered, moving to replace Grimmjow as he stepped back and released his resurrection.

Gin moved his hands to keep him stable, but slid one down the front of Ichigo's body down over his crotch causing Ichigo to jerk. "Hm, I've got so many plans for you, Ichi-pet," he muttered, leaning in and sucking on Ichigo's Adam's apple for a moment. "But I'm not sure I can wait like I wanted to…" he muttered, sliding a hand down and inside the front of the yukata and gasping him tightly. Ichigo's eyes went wide and he looked over Gin's should and saw Grimmjow giving him the lewdest look he'd ever seen on him.

"Ah, oh, Gin, what…" he gasped, feeling Gin's long fingers sliding between his thighs and pressing at his entrance. "Ah, hey, I've…never…" he started then melted into a long drawn out moan as Gin's finger slid inside him and touched something that sent fire through his brain.

"I think he's a little aroused, Grimmy-chan," Gin said, glancing at Grimmjow. "We should fix it."

Grimmjow nodded, using his strength to easily move Ichigo to lay on his back on the sand. Ichigo looked at the both, slightly worried but extremely turned on. Gin smiled at Grimmjow, then crawled between his legs, spreading them out, being careful of the remains of the severed limb. Grimmjow had sat down and pulled Ichigo's upper body into his lap to make sure his arm was controlled and didn't get injured further.

"Ah, Gin, what are you doing…" Ichigo whined as Gin pushed the yukata up, and slid his hand underneath him and began pressing two fingers into him and working him open.

"About to fuck you, Ichi-pet. Unless you want me to stop," he said, glancing at Grimmjow over his writhing body. "Do I stop?" he asked, stilling his fingers inside him.

Ichigo felt good, really good, and he couldn't talk, he just wanted him to keep going because he wanted him. Gin nodded, fingering him again rapidly with three of his fingers until he thought he was ready. He adjusted, sliding up between his legs and leaning over him for a second before sinking all the way inside in one quick thrust. Ichigo's eyes went wide at the sudden intrusion, but he was quickly overcome with pleasure as Gin began rapidly moving inside him and slamming into that spot that felt so good. He gasped and arched and it didn't take more than a moment before he came all over his belly and he felt Gin's cock throbbing inside him as he followed. Ichigo only had a moment before he was on his knees, facing Gin this time with his arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"Ah, ah, oh…" he muttered as he felt Grimmjow grasp his hips, still being careful of his missing limb, and he slammed into him without warning.

Ichigo gasped, gripping Gin hard because Grimmjow had to be twice as thick as Gin had been. He buried his face in Gin's shoulder and wasn't sure if he liked this or not. Then, though, Gin's hand reached down and began pumping him and he was whispering in his ear.

"Ichi-pet, you gotta cum for Grimmy too, you came for me, you little whore. You're such a slut you have to have your first time with two guys fucking you into this beach sand. You like it, the pain, how big Grimmjow's cock is, don't you?" he whispered, stroking him as he spoke, and then Grimmjow's rhythm started stroking his prostate just at the right pace.

It didn't take long for him to go over the edge again, felling Grimmjow follow him. He clung to Gin and then felt Grimmjow holding him from behind.

"We couldn't wait," Grimmjow whispered. "I'm sorry, Ichi-baby, but we had to do this before we lost the chance," he breathed and then helped him stand up against the wall.

Ichigo, flushed and covered with sweat breathed in and out for a minute. "What?"

"We are about to impale you, my pet, however, I'm afraid, however, Grimmy and I have to wait to impale you with our cocks again until you kill that nasty hollow," he said.

Ichigo frowned and didn't have time to say anything as Gin stepped back enough to pull Shinso as Grimmjow stepped even with him holding up Pantera. Ichigo realized what they were doing a second before he heard his father's voice and then felt both swords pierce his stomach at the same time.


	8. Awakening the Dragon

**Chapter Eight**

_Awakening the Dragon_

* * *

Isshin, Urahara, and Yvette stepped through the portal and fell flat on the floor, all three drained momentarily of every ounce of spiritual energy they had. The world faded back in and Isshin felt himself being helped to his feet. He blinked and found himself staring at Renji and Rukia who looked very surprised.

"We did it," Urahara slurred, obviously the trip having taken a toll on him as well.

"What did you say?" Yvette yelled at another arrancar, shaking her head seemingly unable to hear yet.

It took a moment before everything began to clarify and Mayuri had come up. "Ah, I see you managed to find a way to break through the hollow's energy field, come on, Urahara, we'll need that to stop this thing," he said nodding at him.

Urahara steadied himself and left with the captain. Isshin smiled at Renji and Rukia. "My son?"

Renji and Rukia exchanged a glance that said more that Isshin wanted to see. "Um, he's in the medical wing, but…this thing…it…I don't know if you heard what it had done…" Renji said, running a hand over his head.

Isshin crossed his arms and glared at him for a moment. "I knew that the thing had him, and that there was a group going to find him, that's when communication became impossible and we couldn't breech the Dangai into Hueco Mundo."

"It…um…it wants White, and it thought it could make Ichigo's instant regeneration kick in by…cutting parts off of him…" Rukia said, chewing on her lip for a moment.

Isshin closed his eyes for a long moment. "He's alive, though?"

"He is, Kurosaki Isshin," came Kriya's voice. "It took his leg and Gin had to cut his arm off because it was using a poisonous hollow to shackle him and it was going to his heart."

Isshin turned to her and nodded. "I take it you are the medical person here?"

"I am, I am returning to see to him after spending some time in our library on human biology, however, I understand you are a doctor, so your assistance would speed matters greatly," she said with a curt nod.

Isshin shook his head. "Kido should heal even a human body…" he stated slowly.

"This hollow creature inflicts wounds that cannot be healed through arrancar or shinigami powers. We fear that the only way to heal the body is through Ichigo's own hollow's instant regeneration or through natural means. The healer from your world may be able to return his limbs to functionality."

Together they headed toward the medical quarter just as Hanataro came bolting out the door and nearly ran over Kriya.

"Small shinigami, what is it?" she asked, frowning at him.

"Ichigo left, he took off," he said just as Grimmjow and Gin approached with Starrk.

Grimmjow's eyes burned brightly for a second before his face twisted into a snarl. "I'm gonna kill the little bastard," he said, eye twitching.

Isshin turned and looked at him with a strange look wondering exactly what had gotten into the arrancar. "Um, wouldn't killing my son be exactly what we don't want to happen?" he asked slowly. "We should find him and figure out why he…"

"Grind, Pantera," Grimmjow said as he pulled his zanpakutou and sent a heavy burst of reiatsu that was far stronger than anyone had felt him release before, sending more than a few of the lower ranking arrancar to the floor. "I'll find him alright, self-sacrificing dumb ass brat!" he said and zipped away down the halls.

Gin looked at Isshin. "I shall follow the angry kitty," he said with a smirk. "I don't want my pet getting hurt, after all," he said, disappearing in a burst of his own shunpo.

Isshin frowned and looked at the others. "Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?"

"Um, well, you see," Rukia began. "It's that those two, they kind of have grown a bit…um…attached…I think…"

"That's an understatement," Kriya said. "I cannot get either of them to stop hovering around Ichigo's bedside and both of them have threatened to disembowel me if I don't figure out how to help him…" she said shrugging.

Isshin stared at them thoughtfully for a long time and several things ran through his mind, in particular how often his son seemed so lonely. It wasn't something he'd ever thought about, someone like Gin, or someone like Grimmjow. Would they, being what they were, be able to help his son with what he was? Or with what he used to be?

"I'm going after them," Isshin said, taking off before he realized Starrk was about to say something.

Starrk sighed. "I wanted to inform him that we had figured out a way to give Ichigo his powers back, but I suppose he shall know in short order…" he said, shrugging.

Isshin followed the reiatsu easily enough and burst into the beach room just as Gin and Grimmjow pulled back their swords on a very shocked looking Ichigo.

"Gin, Grimmjow, wait!" he called just as both the shinigami and the espada impaled his son against the wall where he was balanced.

There was something that could only be described as a thunderous explosion echoed through the room and Isshin watched as both Grimmjow and Gin flew backward away from the wall a good ten meters, both unconscious. There was a moment when all the air seemed to be sucked out of the room and a white smoke or mist had risen around where Ichigo had been standing against the wall.

"Ichigo?" Isshin called, moving slowly toward him.

As the smoke cleared away, though, what stood there was not his son, and something he'd only heard a description of. The bubbling white foam encased one leg and one arm and when it cracked away the hollow creature that had to be his son was flexing one black nailed hand and glaring at it. It turned its red eyes on Isshin and there was a moment that Isshin wasn't sure if it knew him or not. He knew that the hollow had nearly killed Uryū before because Ichigo had no control over it. Hearing about this, and seeing it in person, was different. He swallowed against the rising bile in his throat as he stared through the hole in his son's chest. It drew Ichigo's sword from its back and looked at it for a moment before it raised its head and howled in a way that sounded like no other hollow sound Isshin had ever heard.

From the doorway, several shinigami and arrancar came rushing into the room. Grimmjow and Gin both were pushing to their hands and knees by now, looking up to see Ichigo turn and focus on them. Isshin caught his breath as Ichigo moved faster than he imagined was even possible before he could focus both Grimmjow and Gin were beside him and Ichigo was standing further down the beach area. He howled again and a red cero began forming between the horns on his head and exploded upward, breaking open a hole in the protections of the ceiling.

"Shit, was afraid of that," Grimmjow muttered from beside Isshin as he brushed the sand off his legs and looked up at the gaping hole. "He's calling it to him."

Isshin looked at the arrancar and then at Gin who had opted to stay sitting, obviously both of them were drained significantly. "What happened?"

Behind him, Starrk limped up, carrying Lillynette on his back as he came. "We knew that we could not defeat it," he said, sighing slowly, setting Lillynette down gently on the floor. Her body had finally mended, but Starrk's arm was still missing. "We knew that the only way to destroy it was for White to consume it into himself. So we had to find a way to do that without Ichigo losing control when White was fully emerged as a vasto lorde. We believed, rightfully, it seems," he said, pausing to yawn expressively. "We used the power of an arrancar and a shinigami to reactive his powers, with some augmentation to their zanpakutou from our own Velocity and your Kurosuchi-taichou. Otherwise, the transfer of power would have destroyed both Grimmjow and Gin. As it was, we were unsure, and the chose to take the chance of their own destruction."

Isshin frowned as Ichigo screamed again, shooting two more cero into the ceiling and causing debris to rain around him. He looked at Gin and Grimmjow in a different light, these two meddlers that had come to the world of the living to harm his son. They had taken the chance of sacrificing their very existence on the chance that they would reignite his son's power. His thoughts were cut off when there was a crash and what could only be described as a wave of hollows began to pour in through the opening in the dome.

"Shit, shit, he's bringing in all the ones we couldn't scare off," came Yumichika's voice as he and Ikkaku came into the room. "We knew something was happening, they'd stopped attacking the outer walls."

Isshin nodded as Ichigo released cero after cero and to his surprise, Ichigo was wielding not one, but two zanpakutou. He glanced and saw that both Grimmjow and Gin had their weapons, so these were not borrowed, and they were not what Ichigo had previously wielded. To his surprise, Ichigo's swords and his cero seemed to purify the hollows instead of destroying them. Before long, Ichigo stood on the ground, and screamed out in the strange wavering sound he had heard before when he was Visored.

"Garandō!" he screamed. "You cannot hide from me! You wanted me to come out and play, well I'm here!"

The room filled with echoing laugher. "Good, I look forward to consuming your soul," came the words from everywhere and nowhere. "But it won't be that easy. First I'll destroy everyone around you, and then, I'll consume you."

Ichigo's form began to shake as he began laughing. "No, no, you don't understand, Garandō. You won't consume me, I'll devour you and become the most powerful hollow in all the worlds. You made a mistake, too Ichigo, and you let them put me in control of our body. I'm the King now, and I'm not Ichigo," he said laughing as the vasto lorde mask and body began to fade back into a body that looked more like Ichigo's. Except it wasn't. It was pure white, and wearing a white shihakuso. A pair of black scleraed eyes fixed on the surprised shinigami and arrancar present.

"What, you didn't think that weakling Ichigo had the balls to do this, did you?" he said, smirking. "He can't stomach it, you see, the thought of devouring this thing. He's hiding, giving up control to me, and you know, I might not give it back when I'm done with this fucker. I like being the King for a change," he said glancing between those present.

"Ichigo," Isshin said.

"Shiro," he responded. "Don't label me with this weakling's name, pop. You proud of your kid now? Hiding away and crying in our inner world about how he can't do it, wah, wah, wah. Fuck him. If he can't handle it, I will," he said with a snarl.

He glanced up at the ceiling looking about like he was going to leap through it when he jerked. He turned and glared around him and began to stumble. "The fuck…did you…do…" he muttered before he collapsed into a heap on the ground.

Isshin looked over to see Nemu standing with a blow gun against her lips. Mayuri stood beside her and nodded. "Good, you did something right for a change," he muttered and turned and left.

Grimmjow headed over to Ichigo's body and leaned down and picked him up as Isshin came over. Grimmjow grimaced, still weakened. "It was a chance, we knew he might not be able to do it," he said quietly. "But maybe we can get him to take over again," Gin said, putting a hand on Isshin's shoulder as they walked back toward the medical ward with the unconscious white version of Ichigo in hand. Gin and Grimmjow exchanged a look, knowing that taking the chance was just that a chance.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"There has to be a way to mitigate the masses of hollows," Yumichika said with a sigh, coming back in from the outer wall with Ikkaku trailing sleepily behind him.

Kula stood waiting nearby as they approached. He hadn't been asked to do it, but he was fascinated by the lovely Yumichika. He thought he was perhaps the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. Knowing, though, that Ikkaku and Yumichika were partners, he was reluctant, in the extreme, especially with his lack of experience. The other arrancar were rather free with sexuality, of course. Most of them had animal drives and the idea of monogamy was almost unknown to most of them. However, the shinigami were different, and Kula wasn't sure how to approach the lovely creature that was before him, especially if Ikkaku took offense to someone else showing Yumichika attention.

"Ah, there might be, um, Yumichika-sama," Kula said as they got closer.

Yumichika smiled fondly at him and nodded. "Oh, Kula, did they send you to check on us again? And there is? That would be good news…" he said, glancing at Ikkaku. Ikkaku had actually used his Bankai this time out, so he was more exhausted than the other times.

"Ah, yes, Belinda Chuhlhourne, she has a voice that will deter many things," he said with a nod, ignoring the question of why he was waiting for them.

Yumichika arched one sculpted brow. "Isn't…isn't that the name of that…Charlotte, or something?"

"Ah, yes, Charlotte Chuhlhourne was Belinda's sister," Kula said. He saw the immediate distress cross Yumichika's face at the name. "Why? I know she died in the arrancar's attack with Barragan and the others."

Yumichika shook his head. "Nothing, nothing really," he said, feeling awkward at running into one of the families of an arrancar he'd killed. "I'm exhausted, really, are we in the same room or did we have to change?" he asked, smiling again.

"Same place, come, I'll go with you," he said, smiling, reaching out briefly to touch Yumichika's hand with a soft glance.

As Kula let them, Ikkaku lightly slapped Yumichika on the ass, causing him to turn and glare at him. Ikkaku was grinning, though, and nodded toward the arrancar who was still nervously glancing at Yumichika now and then. Yumichika frowned and then looked back at Ikkaku who now wore a you're an idiot if you don't see it expression. Yumichika felt a rush to his cheeks as a slight blush dusted them. Ikkaku winked and nodded as they got to the doorway to their room.

"Yo, Yumi, I'm gonna go find out if they have any sake in this place before I rest," he said, leaning over and kissing his cheek gently and smirking at the completely surprised Kula.

Yumichika smiled and touched Kula's shoulder. "Would you like to come in?" he asked, blinking his wide violet eyes at him gently.

"Ah, I should…ah, let you rest…you know, I just thought…I'd see you to your room…and all…." Kula stammered, looking down the hall.

He nearly jumped when Yumichika took his hand and tugged him toward the room. "Come now, you've been passing glances, and touching, and you didn't have to come see to us again…come in."

Kula's eyes went wide and he just nodded, letting Yumichika lead him into the room, then toward where the futon was set on the floor. Kula wasn't sure he understood until he watched him drop his kusodo off his thin shoulders and turn to him with a grin. Kula still didn't know how to respond as Yumichika untied the white obi and let his hakama slid off his hips with a slight wiggle and a wink. He sat down on the bed, leaning against the wall and propping his hands on his spread wide knees, allowing Kula a full view of him.

"Come now, even Ikkaku saw it, so come…" he said, sitting down, violet eyes on him with a smirk.

Kula swallowed hard and stared at something he'd hoped to see, but had been sure he wouldn't. "I've never…I don't know…"

"Well, generally, undressing comes first. Then, I'll touch you, then you can touch me, and then I'll take the lead," he said, taking his fingers and sucking them for a second before sliding them between his thighs. Kula watched in amazement as he pressed three of his slender fingers into himself with incredible ease. "Ikkaku likes to watch me finger myself; he's a pervert in that way. You seem to like watching me do it, too," he said, grinning and thrusting his fingers inside himself until he'd worked his own arousal up.

"Now, come here," he said moving to his hands and knees and beaconing the arrancar to him. "I'll show you what else I can do with my hands. And mouth, if you like."

Kula didn't have to be told again, he moved to the edge of the futon and dropped to his knees, letting Yumichika lift his skirts carefully, and slide the underpants he wore down. Yumichika smiled as his hand gripped his already erect arousal, and began slowly stroking him, watching for Kula's reactions. Kula stared down into Yumichika's face and gasped. After a few minutes Yumichika's head disappeared under his skirt and he felt hot breath on him and then hot, wet suction that made him buck forward in shock. He looked to see Yumichika's other hand was laid over his back, working in and out of himself and somehow, Kula became sure that he wanted to have him. Before he felt himself go over he reached down and pulled Yumichika's head up.

"Ah…I want…uh…" he stammered, and Yumichika reached up and grabbed him and flipped him to his back.

"You're so cute and sexy and hot in this, I'm leaving it on you," Yumichika said, running hands over the skirts, but moving them up enough to stroke him a few more times.

He took a second to wonder if he'd prepared enough because the small arrancar was certainly as well-endowed as Ikkaku was. He smiled and hovered his body over him for a second until he guided his cock into him and sunk down on him all at once. Kula arched, his eyes gone wide as Yumichika paused, settling into his size and panting. Kula reached up and put his hands on Yumichika's hips as he began to slowly work himself up and down, then started to whimper and moan as he set himself to stroke his sweet spot easily. Kula wasn't sure how long he could last but he seemed to find that Yumichika was tightening as he rode up and down. Suddenly Yumichika gasped and let out a low pitched moan as Kula felt his body clamp down on him impossibly hard. Kula felt the tightness throbbing him and he gasped, an orgasm the likes of which like he'd never had slammed into him.

Yumichika fell over and landed beside him with subtle glow to him and smiled at Kula. "Oh my, that was lovely…" he muttered.

"Looked lovely from here," came Ikkaku's voice.

Kula sat up and looked over to the other side of the room, where the lights had been off, and saw Ikkaku stand up and come over and slide into the futon behind Yumichika.

"What?" Kula gasped.

Yumichika hummed as Ikkaku started to suck and bite on his back. "He likes to watch, baby. He can't touch, though. I'm the only one he can fuck, but he likes to watch other people fuck me. That's our relationship."

"He's my slutty little Yumi," Ikkaku said, licking and biting at Yumichika's neck.

"Hmm, just like you like it…" Yumichika answered.

Kula blinked. "I thought…I thought only arrancar were…uh, free, with sex…"

Yumichika squeaked as Ikkaku did something and then giggled. "Oh, sweetie. After a few hundred years, you really have to learn how to entertain yourself," he said, eyes fluttering and yawning. "Stay, though, sleep, don't worry about Ikkaku. He won't touch you."

Kula nodded and snuggled up against Yumichika's front as Ikkaku pulled a cover over the three of them and wondered at what else would occur…

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

To say that Ichigo, or Shiro rather, was angry when he woke up in a sealed cell was an understatement. Mayuri, Nemu, and Velocity had been aware that this event was possible, but they still needed him in order to get rid of Garandō. The problem, however, was going to be ensuring that Ichigo could return to control once that was accomplished. Trading one power hungry hollow for another was not on the top of their list of things to do.

Gin and Grimmjow had recovered quickly, thanks to Velocity and Mayuri coming up with some ways to reinfuse power into shinigami and arrancar. They stood outside the cell as the thing with Ichigo's face screamed at them though they couldn't hear it inside the chamber.

"So how are we going to handle this?" Isshin said from the doorway as he came in. "That Garandō won't stop at anything to get his hands on him. And we can't let him out without Ichigo being in control."

Velocity frowned, circling the enclosure. "I'm afraid that it is up to the human soul to reassert control. But reaching him is going to be complicated. I would say someone who can reach Ichigo's human soul should be allowed in there with him. Of course, he might just kill whoever it is. And if that happens, there's no hope that Ichigo's soul can survive."

"I'll do it," Isshin said slowly. "I can't let that thing destroy my son, either the one inside him or the one out there."

"Nah, old man, can't let that happen," said Grimmjow, sighing. "Gin and I already decided to go in there."

"What?" Isshin said, frowning, and glaring at them. "What good will you do? I'm his father, if his soul reacts to anyone, it should be me."

Gin patted him on the back. "Mah, no, Grimmy and I gave Ichi-pet some startling news before we impaled him, and I think the shock may help, and you must be able to deal with him if we cannot."

"Startling news?" Isshin said, as Gin and Grimmjow both approached the sides of the cell and flashed inside the second the field fluctuated enough to let them in, but not enough that Shiro could get out.

The cell inside was completely soundproof and reiatsu proof from the outside and from the inside to out. However, Shiro's powers were intact inside the cell and free to use against anyone that was inside with him. Gin and Grimmjow started by circling the area, forcing Shiro to keep moving to keep his eyes on both of them.

"Shiro, you know that you can't be the King," Gin said with a smirk. "Now, be a good horse, and let Ichigo come out."

Shiro snarled. "He doesn't want to come out. He's weak and pathetic, and he knows it. He knows you all know it too.

"Is that why the little bitch is hiding?" Grimmjow said, smirking. "He thinks he knows what we think?"

Shiro glared at him as he turned, trying to watch both of them at one time and having difficulty. "He knows what you think. That's why he let me take over. I didn't take control, idiots. He gave it to me."

Grimmjow and Gin exchanged a glance across the small area. "I know," Grimmjow said. "I know he did, I felt it when we pierced him with our zanpakutou. The desperation, the fear, the knowledge that everyone he cared about abandoned him when he needed them, we felt it all, Shiro, so stop playing tough."

Shiro narrowed his eyes at them then started to laugh again. "Damn, you're the only two fuckers to figure out the game, aren't you? We're that good, King," he said giggling against his hand as he leaned against one of the clear barriers, crossing his arms. "Though its fucking good to be out of the damn box. Granted, you two get no points because it was your zanpakutou that reactivated our powers, so the feedback I figured would happen."

"Why the game, Ichi-pet?" Gin said, frowning at him. "Why pretend?"

"Because, Garandō has to think that I'm in control without permission, that fucker has to believe that I'm just as fucking twisted as he is in order for me to get to him and consume him. I told King he should probably stay hidden during that event, though," he said with a smirk.

Grimmjow frowned. "You're actually going to consumer it?"

"Yeah, how else am I going to get rid of it. Now, you are gonna have to let me escape, or I'm never going to eat the bastard's soul," Shiro said with a smirk. "And you can't let the others know what's happening. If it gets a hold of one of the shinigami or arrancar and they know I'm fucking playing it, I'll never fucking get near the fucker."

Gin and Grimmjow exchanged a look and nodded. "They'll remodulate the shielding when they let us out. Start to let your skin turn back and they'll think we succeeded in talking Ichigo out. Then go after the bastard," Grimmjow said with a nod.

"Oh, I love acting," Shiro said and fell to his knees, letting color bleed back into the body.

Outside the others began scrambling, believing that whatever was going on was working. Grimmjow kneeled and put his arms around Shiro. "Shiro, if you kill me I'm gonna find your white ass and kick it," he muttered, knowing that to make it look real, Shiro would have to lash out against him.

"Don't worry, baby blue. Gotta make sure you get to fuck King, so I'll be careful. Just make him scream for me, baby," he said, winking one eye as the shielding dropped.

Shiro exploded out of the cell and was gone, leaving Grimmjow groaning and bleeding on the floor. Well, he guessed he didn't kill him, he thought as he fell unconscious.


	9. Scales and Claws and Dragon Wings

**Chapter Nine**

_Scales and Claws and Dragon Wings_

* * *

Grimmjow woke up in the medical wing sometime later and found that he was alone with Gin. He came to wakefulness with a start and gasp. He was sore as hell too. He felt like that fucking hollow had gone through him when he got out. He glanced down to see several lines of red claw marks running down his chest. This was certainly not the way he wanted to be clawed by Ichigo…

"Fucking little beast," he muttered, sitting up slowly and seeing the others had left to probably go find what happened to Ichigo. "I'm going to fucking pay him back when I get my hands on him again…I'm going take a belt and fucking bust his ass until he's red as a goddamned cherry."

"Mah, mah, I'm sure you'll get the chance, Grimmy, now, but you're healed up. We'll both hold him down and spank him for what a pain he's been. Before we fuck him again. And again." Gin sighed, looking wistful for a second at the thought. "For now, we've got to get out there and find him before the others do. He's probably gonna need our help even if he doesn't think so," Gin said, standing and nodding at him.

A connection had been made in the moment they'd pierced Ichigo with their zanpakutou. It was like for a moment their souls became entwined with each other. It was like their zanpakutou spirits had also entwined, and for the first time they realized exactly how different Ichigo was. For a second on the outside, all of them had been sucked into Ichigo's sideways inner world, and face to face with both Zangetsu and Shiro, and they all three suddenly understood. Ichigo had three powers, including the power of a Quincy. It was like at that moment, all secrets were laid bare for them, everything Ichigo had been hiding, everything that he didn't know about himself, came to shocking clarity. They were the three forces in the world. The three together and separate at the same time. And all three realized that the reason that Ichigo couldn't control things was because he needed help, and Gin and Grimmjow were able to help.

It was almost like they could sense Ichigo now, like there was a signal that came from him that they could home in on. "We should go, they're gathering the forces to head toward the highest concentration of hollows nearby," Gin said, glancing at Grimmjow who slowly slid off the bed. "You know he won't be able to push him back."

Grimmjow shook his head. "No, not once he consumes that Garandō. Shiro won't want to give up control, no matter what he says, we'll have to help him. I know Ichigo is sure, but I am not sure, especially if Shiro becomes inheritor of the power. There is too much we don't know for sure. There are things that Aizen said, about Garando being impossible to kill that bother me. Mah, he never said why."

"How do we do it? We can just leave without the others, they'll know something is up if we don't," Gin said, glancing toward the door.

"We just go with them," Grimmjow said, nodding and heading out the door with Gin on his heels. They found that near the exit there was a large group gathering being led by Harribel.

Harribel looked up. "Are you both going with us?" she asked, looking between them.

"We should, I think we can help find him. The power transfer left us with some…knowledge of how to find him," Gin said with a smile. "Do you have a plan to neutralize the hollows he's going to have gathered around him to stop just that from happening?"

Harribel nodded, glancing behind her at Velocity who was speaking with a very elegant looking arrancar with rich purple hair pinned high on her head. Her bone fragment rested across her head like some sort of tiara, and she wore a high waisted dress in pale blue tones with layers on layers of sheer to opaque material.

"Belinda is going out with us. Velocity has a device to amplify her voice so that she can neutralize a large number of hollows at one time," Harribel said, nodding. "It should be enough to scatter most the hollows through adjunca class."

Mayuri came up as Harribel was explaining things to Grimmjow and Gin and looked over the machine Velocity was carrying. "How will this power be effective?" he asked, looking at Belinda.

"My voice can change to shatter objects of different types, up to and including rock and stone," she said, smiling gently at him.

Mayuri gave her an odd look, and then glanced at the amplifier. "So you'll shatter the hollows?"

"No, of course not, they are not in control of themselves, it will simply send them away until the situation with Garandō is resolved. The amplifier will simply give my voice a wider dispersal area. I do not like to use my voice at higher levels than necessary because doing so would destroy my vocal cords eventually, and I love to sing for other reasons than fighting," she said.

Kula brought up Yumichika and Ikkaku, his hand loosely intertwined with Yumichika on one side, and Ikkaku holding Yumichika's other in a tight grip. Rukia and Renji looked up and glanced at each other. Renji grinned at Ikkaku. It wasn't the first time. Hell, Renji himself had had more than one romp with Yumichika, and he knew that Ikkaku loved to watch someone else have their way with his lover. As they came up, the new arrancar, Belinda came over and smiled at the group.

"I hope that I am able to help enough," she said softly.

Kula glanced at Yumichika who looked bothered and kept squeezing Kula's hand. "Belinda, this is my new friends Yumichika and Ikkaku," he said, getting the other arrancar to turn and smile.

"Hello there," she said and Yumichika couldn't help but stare.

"Ah, Belinda, Yumichika fought your sister during the winter war, and I believe he feels somewhat worried about how you feel about her death," Kula said, seeing Yumichika blink and give him an unsure look.

Belinda smiled gently, though, reaching out and taking Yumichika's hand. "Charlotte chose to go to the front lines, my dear. She made that choice, to stand beside Lord Barragan and fight. Wars bring endings, my dear," she said in her melodious voice. "In the end, did she fight with honor?" she asked.

Yumichika nodded. "Yes, she fought me one on one, and it was fairly fought. I must say, you are extrodinarily beautiful…and your voice is astounding."

"She sings and she plays keyboards, too," Kula supplied. "Belinda, sing a bit before we leave for them. She always sung for Starrk."

Belinda nodded and began a short operatic piece that quickly had the entire room quiet and listening for a few moments. When she was done, a few people clapped, amazed at her voice and range of it. Mayuri looked relieved that she hadn't shattered anything like she said she could right then.

Urahara and Isshin quickly gathered all the strongest and soon each were each leading a team of arrancar into the sands. Harribel set Grimmjow and Gin to head up the mission. They had no idea if Ichigo would need their help, but they knew that they could not allow whoever became victorious to roam freely. Starrk watched as they left, reaching down and brushing his hand across Lillynette's head were she slept against his leg. She'd woken up a couple times, but she was still recovering. It wouldn't be long until they were both at full strength.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Shiro moved quickly through the sands, homing in easily enough on the reiatsu signature of the other hollow. "It really is my predecessor, King," he said as he sonidoed through the expanses toward a large open area where hollows were starting to gather. "That hollow controlling power is awesome, I want that, King, think I'll get it when I eat him up?"

_Shiro, I don't think that matters, we have a deal, remember? _Ichigo's voice said from inside his head.

Shiro grinned. "Ah, I know King, but you know, we should really renegotiate. I kinda like this."

_No, you promised me, you said that you would step back when the time was right, _Ichigo's irritation was getting stronger at his body's other passenger.

Shiro stopped, getting a look out on the area. "And you believed me, King? You honestly think I'mma gonna give up the fucking throne without a fight? I know what I said, but when have I ever given up without fight. You fucking take it back, and that's fine, but you aren't just gonna get it for free," he muttered, feeling Garandō's presence nearby.

The white version Ichigo's face split into a grin as he heard Ichigo screaming at him. He figured that Ichigo would wrest control back, he was the King after all, but he would have a little fun before then. Especially now that he was away from the damn shinigami and arrancar. He still couldn't believe that scientist bastard had actually come up with an effective way to neutralize him with a fucking dart. A dart of all things.

A few minutes later, he felt Grimmjow and Gin coming closer. Good, he thought. He'd need the distraction for the hollows that Garandō had gathered around him. "Fucking prick bastard, he could just fight me one on one."

_You expect him to fight fair? You don't._

Shiro smirked, crouching down to wait until the arrancar and shinigami cleared some of the rabble. "Not at all, King, not at all."

Below, Belinda and Velocity started their sonic assault, the amplifier sending out Belinda's haunting voice far wider than she could normally send it. The song was one from the world of the living, but it suited her voice well. Hollows began to scatter, and Shiro laughed because he could hear Garandō's frustration. Shiro stood and leaped down over the gathered Shinigami, surprising a couple groups as he passed them and landed in the middle of the now open area.

"Garandō!" he yelled. "Come out and play!"

Around the area, the arrancar and shinigami began to form a circle to keep whatever victor of this battle in their sights.

In the center, the creature that some of them had seen took form, coming together from the very air around him.

"About fucking time. Chasing goddamned shadows and your puppet army," Shiro said, drawing the longer of the twin zanpakutou. "You and I got problems, I mean, seriously, fucking cutting up my King? You're like the worst fucking stalker to ever exist. If you wanted my attention, you could have just fucking asked, sweetheart," he said, rolling his eyes at him.

Garandō smiled inside the hood. "I have you now, so we can make this easy for both of us. You and I are beyond anything that these shinigami and arrancar, can you imagine our power together? If we become one, then there will be no stopping us."

"You mean if you consume me you become the most powerful thing around, not gonna happen. You aren't getting that without a fucking fight," Shiro snarled at him.

The other hollow seemed to laugh before it pulled the hood down from its head. "Man," Shiro said. "You're fugly, the hell is the rest of your fucking head?"

"Unlike you, I never was fused with a soul successfully. This is the result of the failure of our master," he said, the eerie light sucking feature of his face making those who had not seen him cringe.

Shiro glared at him. "My King is my master, fucker, not anyone else."

"Our master is the Lord Aizen, who I intend to release and bind our existence to in order to increase our power. His shinigami soul will be sufficient to give us control over most powers. Lord Aizen will make us whole, do you not see?" the hollow said.

"Are you fucking insane?" Shiro said. "You can't let that fucker out. It took everything that King had to _weaken_ him enough to capture him with the power he got from the hogyuku. You can't fucking be serious."

Garandō smiled; his nearly skeletal grin seemingly bright in the nothingness of his face. "Oh, but once we are one, we can. With my power, and your power, together we can consume him, and whatever remains of the hogyuku's power inside him. We will unite and become everything."

Shiro frowned deeply but smiled. This fucker was twisted. _This surprises you? _Ichigo echoed. _He was cutting pieces off of me thinking he could force power I couldn't access back_.

"Well, you know, there are worse things. How does this work, because fuck you if you think I'm going to let you consume me."

"We join together. We shall share the body you inhabit, as I have none, and then we will breech the barriers between Hueco Mundo and Soul Society, and merge with Lord Aizen. With your power and my own, he will pose no threat to us. Then, we will devour the three worlds," the creature said, stepping forward a few steps toward Shiro.

Shiro nodded and behind him, he heard the movement of the forces to stop them. Idiots, he thought to himself, like he was going to play this bastard's game. He stepped forward and grinned. He joined hands with Garandō. Just as he felt the other hollow's power reach out toward him, he started to giggle, startling those around him.

"Psych, bitch, you think I'd fucking release the bastard that fucked with me last time?" he said, taking his other arm and slamming Zangetsu's long blade through the creature's chest.

Everything seemed to slip into slow motion. Several things happened at one time, and then everything moved faster than most in the battle could track. Grimmjow released his resurrection, as did several of the other espada and arrancar, and several shinigami released their bankai. There was an explosion of nearly crippling reiatsu that sent any hollow adjunca or below to the ground, and the lesser ones were knocked unconscious. Any shinigami that didn't have the power to use bankai also was sent to their knees, and even then, some of the captain level shinigami were rocked backward. The release, of course, was Shiro going into his full vasto lorde form. Garandō had likewise summoned a massive amount of power to heal himself where the zanpakutou had pierced him.

Garandō had increased in size and the power he radiated was much stronger. The hollow portion of his head was covered with a thick hollow mask now and he screamed in rage.

"You dare betray me?" he screamed at the vasto lorde as he formed a black cero in his hand and started rapidly pelting Shiro with them again and again.

Shiro's speed countered most of them, but a few struck him, and one sent him flying into the middle of the ranks of the shinigami and arrancar forces. He screamed and leaped back at Garandō, tackling him to the ground and rapidly shooting his own ceros at him. There were ceros and swords and powers surrounding them as more hollows began to return at the call he sent out. There was another song from Belinda using the amplifier, and Garandō screamed in frustration that they were countering one of his abilities.

"You will not stop us!" Garandō screamed in pure frustration.

Shiro appeared above him just then, crossing the twin zanpakutou and shooting a wordless cross of Quincy infused power at him.

"Fucker, I will destroy you!" Shiro screamed as the power Garandō and knocked him back hard.

The Quincy power would obliterate most hollows completely; however it merely injured Garandō, making his power drop lower. Shiro screamed again, summoning a cero and slamming it into him as he ran forward and engaged in crossing swords with him. Shiro could tell he was wearing him down, and unlike Shiro, he didn't have the instant regeneration, so his wounds were bleeding freely. Then, a blue cero impacted the back of the hollow, and Shiro watched as a blade emerged from his chest from behind. Shinso retracted and Garandō stumbled.

"You…you wanted to fight me alone," he growled at Shiro.

"You don't expect me to play fair?" Shiro said, lunging forward and stabbing him through the chest with both swords and slamming a cero into him at the same time.

Grimmjow grinned as he watched Shiro go in for the kill. Gin, though he was what he considered a strong-stomached person, grimaced and looked away. Watching hollows consume each other was not something he enjoyed, even in passing. When he was done, there was an explosion of power and smoke and the vasto lorde form Ichigo wore had altered to include a pair of wide, draconic looking wings spreading out from his back and an even more vicious looking mask. Grimmjow recognized it as a segunda etapa. The only espada to have ever achieved a segunda etapa had been Ulquirro. It was fitting that Ichigo would attain one since had been able to defeat him.

Shiro swooped down and landed where Grimmjow and Gin stood with the other shinigami and arrancar who were starting to head back to Las Noches, all save the strongest of their number because they all knew that the danger was not past just yet. The vasto lorde mask slipped off to reveal the white version of Ichigo once more as the features all receded quickly. He put the twin swords on his back and grinned at the gathered, pausing to wink at Isshin.

Grimmjow, still in resurrection looked at him. "Let Ichigo have control back, Shiro."

Shiro giggled manically. "No, he's not getting control without a fight," he said grinning. "This new power, I like it. I think I want to play for a while."

Gin and Grimmjow exchanged a look, having expected this. "Mah, mah, no, Ichigo needs to come back."

Shiro grinned again. "He's trying to but he's having a little trouble at the moment with the new power I have," he said.

Shiro tried to flash away only to be grabbed from both sides by Grimmjow and Gin. He struggled for a moment. "What…how are you…"

"Ichigo wants to come back, and you need to let him," Isshin said as he walked up toward him.

"You can't do this! Let…me…go!" Shiro screamed, not understanding how Grimmjow and Gin could possibly hold him at the new strength he'd gained. Then his eyes clouded and he screamed in frustration. "Damn you, Ichigo, damn you! I will get another chance, you'll weaken again, and I'll take it, you understand!"

Between Grimmjow and Gin Shiro began to sway, but they held on, feeding their reiatsu into Ichigo through him, using their bond to bring him to the surface, to give him the strength to fight the internal battle that was going on inside him. They knew that they couldn't help directly, no more than help him by giving him support from the outside. They knew the fight between them was just that, between Shiro and Ichigo.

It took only a few moments, but they seemed to last forever before Ichigo's skin begin to return to the normal tan color and his hair began to shift back into orange. Finally, Ichigo lifted his head and they watched his eyes bleed back to normal and he smiled up at Gin and Grimmjow. His face, though, had retained the red facial markings of his mask, and his chest was marked with the black streaks of his vasto lorde form.

"That…wasn't…fun," he said before going completely slack between them.


	10. Coiling

**Chapter Ten**

_Coiling_

* * *

Las Noches was in a stir after everything that had happened. So it was that as exhausted arrancar and shinigami bedded down for the evening, Hanataro nervously knocked on the door to Harribel's rooms where Sun-Sun had said to come to tonight. After everything that had gone on, they'd decided to meet up with a few people and watch movies with Moab. Hanataro had gotten close to Sun-Sun, finding her cute and nice, and she was quiet like he was. He was let in and he saw an assortment of people lounging around the large room. He saw Imelda and Maxi sitting on the futon but didn't see Dima. He knew that Dima and Imelda often slept together, but he knew that the arrancar saw sexual relations differently. Harribel wasn't present, but Moab and the other medical arrancar had come. Yumichika and Ikkaku also sat over on one side, legs intertwined with each other while Kula sat holding Yumichika's hand loosely in his. Rukia and Renji had opted to not join them, and of course Gin and Grimmjow were at medical with Kriya until they figured out how things were going to be with Ichigo.

Hanataro was about to find a spot when he blinked, seeing Dima finally. He came out of what was apparently the bath, a towel draped over his shoulders and nothing else. He casually walked over to the other side of the room and grabbed a set of clothes from a pile and got dressed without a thought that he was in room full of people. He frowned and realized not one of the arrancar seemed to think anything of it, while the shinigami, like him, were all trying to avoid looking at him. Interesting, he thought. Modesty was different for them as well, he thought, watching as the now dressed Dima went and crawled into Imelda's lap and snuggled with her.

Moab stood up and started the DVD projector that they had gotten from the world of the living, showing something called 'Rear Window'. He said he likes this guy named Hitchcock so Yvette had brought him a few back on her last trip, something called 'To Catch a Thief' and 'North by Northwest' too. Moab said he found them relaxing, but Hanataro wasn't sure. It didn't seem like the plot of a relaxing movie to him. He said afterward he had another movie that Hanataro might like called 'Apollo 13'. It didn't matter to Hanataro, he loved anything to do with the world of the living.

Sun-Sun motioned him over to where she was sitting with Mila Rose and Apacci. "Come sit," she said, smiling gently at him.

By the end of the first film, Hanataro thought he was feeling sick or something, but then he realized the problem. Sun-Sun reached over and gently touched his hand, testing. He glanced over and saw her shy smile hiding behind her sleeves again and he blushed and returned the touch, slowly their hands intertwining with each other. He looked around at the connections between shinigami and arrancar, some friends, some lovers, and he wondered at it. Such amazing things from perceived tradgedy…

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"Shiro, you knew that you could not retain control," Zangetsu said with a deep sigh as Shiro sat on the side of the building grinning.

Shiro shook his head. "Never intended to, old man. I'm the horse, he's the King, the way it should be."

Zangetsu nodded. "You wanted him to feel like he earned his place once more."

Shiro nodded. "Yeah, King got broken while we were gone, old man. Had to do something. He was fucking lost and weak, and he just had to know he could do it. I knew he could, he wouldn't be my King otherwise."

"You would play the villain to make him feel like he is strong?" Zangetsu said from his perch on the flagpole.

Shiro smirked. "I'd do that and more, old man. But you know, if he wasn't strong, I would kill him, you know that. But I knew he'd win, I knew that he could take me at full strength. He's my King, after all. I gotta protect him the best I can. I'm a good horse, right, old man?" he said, a strange look crossing his face as he looked up at the old man.

The old man nodded gently. "You're a good horse, Zangetsu," he said with a soft smile, giving the hollow zanpakutou spirit his name for the first time.

Shiro looked up, and there was a moment of clear understanding that could not be explained between the two manifestations of power.

"But it's not over yet," Shiro said, looking up and seeing the sky turning dark and lightning beginning to flash and break it open.

Zangetsu looked up and shook his head. "No, it's not. The power of the other hollow is trying to consume us."

"Should we do anything?" Shiro said, sighing, realizing that after everything, their very existence was still in danger.

Zangetsu sighed. "No, we're powerless to stop it from here."

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"There's good news, and bad news," Velocity said as she exited the private room they'd put Ichigo in.

Isshin and the others looked up in anticipation. "The good news is that I believe he will fully recover."

The statement was met with sighs of relief, but they were quickly replaced with worry. "And the bad news?" Isshin asked.

"The bad news is that his human form was obliterated when White returned to power and with the addition of the Garandō's power…" Velocity glanced at Urahara to finish.

"He can't return to the world of the living," Urahara said, looking saddened by the statement.

Isshin blinked. "What? Why?"

Urahara gave an exasperated sigh. "He'll destroy any gigai I try to put him in. And, worse than that, he might actually rip a tear through the Dangai just by crossing it. The effect on all three worlds would be catastrophic."

Isshin nodded. "So he can't go to Soul Society either."

Urahara shook his head. "If he leaves Hueco Mundo, there's a chance that he will tear the very fabric of our worlds. Even if he learns complete control over his reiatsu, he still can't leave this realm."

Isshin nodded and looked thoughtful. "There's no way to change it, then?"

Mayuri and Velocity exchanged a glance as Urahara shook his head. "No, not that I…"

"Maybe," Velocity said, frowning. "Maybe if…but…no…" she muttered, staring into the distance.

"Velocity, my dear, please, if you have an idea?" Isshin said. "I know that Ichigo will be fine if he can't come home, but…I'd still like it if he was able to do so if he wants."

Velocity frowned and shook her head thoughtfully then looked up as Grimmjow and Gin came out of the room where Ichigo was still unconscious. "It will involve them doing a lot more than stabbing him, if I'm right."

Isshin frowned, looking between her and the two that were talking quietly outside the room. "What do you mean?"

"Unification of the bodies and the spirits," Velocity said looking thoughtful. "Because I'm not sure…" she began just as the door to the room burst open and Ichigo stood in it staring into space.

Grimmjow turned around and saw something that terrified him and everyone else there. The space around his body was dark, sucking in the light around him. Gin stared at Grimmjow for a moment before he lunged forward to try and touch him. Before Gin could even get close, he was repelled backward into the wall with enough force to go through the stone. Ichigo tipped his head to the side and stared at where he'd gone through the wall and his eyes flickered between brown, glowing red, and the black and gold.

"Not…complete," came a hollow voice that those who had heard Garandō speak before recognized easily. "Not…giving…up…" he said, his face flickering between the skull mask Garandō had and his red streaked Visored mask then to the full vasto lorde mask before returning to his human face.

Isshin's eyes went wide and he looked at Urahara with a pleading look. Urahara's mouth hung agape and he shook his head at his friend. He had no idea how to fix this. This wasn't what he'd expected. White's ability to replace a zanpakutou spirit should have completely subverted Garandō. It should have. He had no idea why it didn't.

"I believe when Ichigo resumed the primary position of power over his hollow, he left himself open to a backdoor that was programmed into Garandō," Velocity said looking at the strange shifting creature before her.

"What?" Grimmjow asked, glancing over to see that Gin hadn't gotten up yet.

Mayuri nodded. "Aizen gave Garandō the ability to avoid being consumed by other hollows. That's why he still exists here in Hueco Mundo. He could be consumed by more powerful hollows, then take over them from within. In essence, the only way that he could have won was to be consumed by White…"

Isshin paled considerably. "We did exactly what he wanted…"

Ichigo shook his head, putting a hand on the doorway. Where he touched it, the stone began to crumble away. "Lord Aizen…" he said, looking up. "I'll have your soul…I'll become complete…finally complete…Father…"

"What are we going to do? You said if he attempts to cross the realms that he'll tear a hole in the very fabric of our reality!" Grimmjow said. "If he gets to Aizen, if he consumes him and the Hogyoku…"

"We'll all die," Gin said softly as he pulled himself out of the rubble of the wall. Blood streamed down his face and arms and his hand where he'd reached for Ichigo was mangled and burned almost beyond recognition. "This thing, it is a creature of entropy, decay…nothingness. It will not stop."

Ichigo's face shifted back and forth between the masks until he screamed, but it was not a hollow scream, and fell to his knees, black decay spreading from where his knees touched the ground. "No! I…won't…let…you…"

"He's still fighting it," Isshin said hopefully.

"Don't be too relieved, I'm afraid…" Velocity began as Ichigo's head was thrown back and his face became covered by Garandō's skeletal mask fully.

He stood slowly, everywhere he touched expanding outward in decay, but unlike Barragan's power, this was not just entropy and ending. This was nothingness. He tilted his head to the side and raised one red taloned hand and ripped a hole into the Dangai with such force that they could almost hear the torment of the rupture as though it were a living thing.

"I'll become complete…" he said in Garandō's voice and stepped through.

There was a moment where they could see the portal starting to close, but Grimmjow shook his head and glanced at Gin. He recognized that look. He gave a curt nod and together, they leaped through the rupture to follow him. After the had given him back his power, the link remained, and both could feel the complete terror and horror in Ichigo's soul as it fought an almost impossible force trying to obliterate everything he was and replace it with nothingness.

Unlike a garganta or traveling to the Dangai by senkaimon, this was nearly impossible to see in. Instead of using their own senses, they linked their thoughts with Ichigo's and followed his reiatsu. Wherever Garandō had moved, there was simply nothing left behind. Even in the Dangai, he obliterated everything in his path. Finally, they both fell out the other side in Soul Society in the middle of a dark patch in the Rukongai.

"He'll go for Aizen," Gin said, glancing at Grimmjow. "We have to stop him."

Grimmjow turned and looked at the gaping hole torn in the wall of reality behind him. It looked like a weeping wound, black ichor oozing from it onto the ground, where it destroyed anything it touched. "And that?"

Gin shook his head. "We can't worry about that now; we have to get to him before he destroys half the gotei."

It didn't take much to find him. He'd gotten through into the Seireitei, the walls having been destroyed simply by his touch. He stood, head drooped in the middle of a blackened circle, several lower ranking shinigami being pulled away that had been injured. Zaraki, Shunsui, and Jushiro stood staring in complete shock at what they were seeing as Grimmjow and Gin dropped down between the three captains and Ichigo.

"Ukitake-taichou!" Gin said, smiling at him. "And Zaraki-taichou and Kyrouku-taichou, very nice to see you, but I suggest that you allow my dear kitty cat and I to handle this situation…" he said with a smirk.

"Ichimaru?" Ukitake stammered. "What? How? And Ichigo?" he said, staring at the now quiet and pulsating form Ichigo was currently.

"Ichigo!" Grimmjow screamed, getting Ichigo to raise his head, his eyes shifting between red and brown until they stopped on brown for a moment.

"Kill me!" he growled. "No, before…he gets…to…" Ichigo's head shivered and the full skeletal mask covered his face again and he laughed in Garandō's voice.

"Bring me my Father!" it screamed at those gathered. "I'll have my completion at last!"

Shunsui exchanged a look with Jushiro. "Who, or what, is that? Is that the hollow that took Ichigo from the world of the living?"

Gin nodded. "Yes, it would seem he has a distinct desire to consume someone we really cannot let him have…"

"Bring him to me or I will destroy you all!" Garandō yelled, holding Ichigo's hands up and a cero of pure black energy began forming. "Bring me Aizen!"

Gin glanced down at his already mangled and useless arm, then looked at Grimmjow. "Perhaps we can use the same method as before."

Grimmjow nodded, and glanced at the gathering shinigami. "No matter what happens, don't come near him. And if we fail…stop him, no matter what it takes."

"What are you going to do?" Jushiro asked, holding his twin blades in front of him defensively.

"Stab him and hope he doesn't kill us…" Gin said with a shrug flash stepping behind him while Grimmjow sonidoed in front of him. The both sunk their zanpakutou through his midsection at the same time, causing the voice of Garandō to scream and the cero flickered out.

Both Grimmjow and Gin felt the entropy trying to pull them into the nothingness around him. Ichigo gasped out loud. "Not here, not here, they'll all die," he said and all three were sucked into a black speck before they were simply gone.

Grimmjow and Gin were falling and then hit the ground. They stood up to find Ichigo kneeling in the middle of an empty field. They were still in Soul Society, but they couldn't even see the Seireitei anymore. He was panting and blood was flowing freely down his front and back, the two swords still impaling him.

"Ichigo," Grimmjow said, dropping to his knees in front of him and pulling his face up.

"You…you…pushed him…back…but I have to…control him…I have to force him to submit to me…like with Shiro…" he gasped, wincing as the swords grated against his insides. "Then Shiro…Shiro has to use his power on him in there. He didn't know before…he didn't realize he had to use that power, the power that Aizen made him with. The power that my pop controlled in my mother."

"How?" Gin asked, starting to worry at the blood draining out of Ichigo.

"The three of us…the hollow, the human…and the shinigami…" he said with a sigh.

"Become one body, become one soul," a voice said behind them. Grimmjow and Gin turned and stared to see an image of someone they didn't expect.

"Sōsuke?" Gin said, staring at the translucent image.

"I felt them come back. I felt my creations. But Garandō, I sent him away because of this. He was a total failure in every way that White was a success. That is why his name is Garandō. I warned the arrancar of him, to avoid him. Unite, and you'll dominate him," he said and Aizen's image flickered away.

In a few moments, they were surrounded by captains and shinigami and they were all taken to the fourth division where Unohana dealt with all the injuries. Byakuya came when Rukia and Renji made it back through the worlds to see how things had come. Mayuri, Nanao, and Velocity were trying to repair the damage to the Dangai while Urahara had come back with Kirya and was trying to figure out how to deal with Ichigo. Isshin had went back to the world of the living to get Orihime, Chad, and Uryū, knowing that it might be necessary to use Uryū to destroy Ichigo completely with his Quincy powers. They had an idea that the hogyuku's power had something to do with Aizen being able to project his image to the others. When he was checked on there was nothing he would say to them, having apparently said all he cared to.

Gin flexed his newly repaired arm and thanked Orihime. "I regret what happened to you when Aizen took you to Hueco Mundo," he commented thoughtfully. "You are special to Ichigo, I have seen that in my time observing him. He has few people he cares for like you."

She blushed and nodded. "I know. But…"

Gin nodded. "Uryū is a good man; he will love you as you need."

Orhime frowned at him. "How'd you…?"

Gin smirked. "I've been following him since he went back," Gin said softly and slid off the table. "I've got see if we can save Ichigo, though."

He left her to work on another injured shinigami and he went into the room where Urahara and Unohana were keeping Ichigo unconscious with a combination of sedatives and kido. Even then, he was still fighting to come to wakefulness.

"Any ideas?" Gin said as he entered the room, seeing Grimmjow sitting off to the side, staring at the floor.

"Just thinking on Aizen's words. To join bodies and souls. It might be viable. The forces of the three types of souls might be enough to make the foreign hollow submit and allow White to enact his power to replace the creature's zanpakutou, thus binding it away inside himself," Urahara said with a sigh. "So there must be a physical transference of power and spiritual energy between…" Urahara paused. "I mean, if I had more time, I could come up with options, but right now…"

Gin nodded slowly. "We'll have to go in his inner world and help him directly."

"It isn't simple. You and Grimmjow would have to focus all your reiatsu into Ichigo's human soul, at the same time. And I can't guarantee you'll survive it any more than Mayuri could say if you would survive reactivating his power. And if you can't save him, Mayuri and Velocity are going to amplify Uryū's powers to destroy him. We haven't got much time. It is taking all we have to keep him unconscious at this point," Urahara said, looking at Ichigo's body that was now and then wracked by spasms of some sort.

"Let's do this shit and stop talking," Grimmjow said, standing up.

Urahara nodded and put a bed on either side of Ichigo's. "I'll initiate a kido that should allow you both to enter his world," he said, but looked between them. "But when you get there, I have no idea how you will give him your power."

"We shall figure it out, Kisuke," Gin said as his eyes glinted blue in the light for a moment before both he and Grimmjow began falling.

Both splashed down into the waterlogged world. They looked up to find that the sky was black and crackling with lightning. Neither had to speak, they both simply went to where they felt the human piece of Ichigo clinging barely to existence against everything that was trying to destroy him.

Ichigo sat in the center of a rapidly shrinking circle standing on top of the water. He looked up and there was the single most human look either had ever seen on his face. Complete and total terror as he swatted away tendrils of black smoke that tried to reach for him. He was completely exposed, stripped of every stitch of clothing, power, and façade as he sat clutching his knees to his chest. He had nothing protecting him any longer. He was alone, no hollow, no zanpakutou, nothing, to keep the darkness at bay that was trying to destroy him.

Gin and Grimmjow both hit a barrier when they tried to get to him, the darkness, Garandō, no doubt was trying to keep them away from him. Gin pounded on it with both fists and so did Grimmjow. The darkness was inching closer to him, the tendrils leaving long rips in his skin when he didn't swat them away fast enough.

"No!" Gin said, frowning, touching the barrier with the flat of his hands. "Ichigo, let us in. Let us help you."

Grimmjow glanced at Gin and realized that the barrier wasn't Garandō's making, it was Ichigo's. He'd erected it himself to keep Gin and Grimmjow safe. Ichigo, despite the terrified look on his face shook his head.

"Idiot brat!" Grimmjow yelled, slamming both fists, now clawed since Grimmjow had slipped into his resurrection. "If you don't let us try, you're going to kill us anyway! They're going to use Uryū to destroy you! We won't live through that! And it will destroy Uryū to have killed you! You know that!"

Ichigo looked up and stared at the two of them and realized that they were right. He was here, exposed, alone, and very human, and trying to take on one of the single most powerful forces he'd ever encountered because he didn't want to endanger anyone. Yet, but doing that, he was going to cause untold damage because he couldn't stop it. He knew that beyond a doubt. He couldn't feel Zangetsu or Shiro anymore, it had done something to suppress them, to keep them away from him. He knew that it couldn't overtake them while Ichigo's human soul still existed because they were only a part of his human soul. He had to directly come after the human center of him.

"You can let us help, Ichigo, please. Let us…let us complete you, make you whole again," Gin said, eyes wide now and shining at him with their blue brilliance.

The barrier shattered and both leaped across the blackened expanse, feeling the pain of the attacks as they lashed at their souls, trying to rip them apart. It didn't matter, though because they both landed inside the circle that remained and the blackness screamed. The hollow knew that there was no way to stop what was coming.

Gin smiled and took one of Ichigo's hand, while Grimmjow gripped the other. "Never again are you alone," Gin said and leaned forward and kissed Ichigo's cheek.

"Never again," Grimmjow said, leaning forward and doing the same thing.

The blackness rose around them, rising and covering the sky and trying to crush in on them, but there was a burst of blinding reiatsu and Ichigo felt the world tilt and spin and he saw Shiro, leaping through the blackness and cackling like mad. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard Zangetsu's soothing voice telling him to hold on.

Ichigo sat straight up with a hollow scream as his body morphed into the full vasto lorde mode in the fourth division. Everyone scattered, only Isshin and Byakuya standing in the room. Gin and Grimmjow were still beside him as the body writhed in what appeared to be agony of some sort. Grimmjow and Gin both gasped and sat up, turning without a thought and each grabbing one of Ichigo's arms in uncanny synchronicity.

Like when they had stopped Shiro from leaving before, Ichigo stilled between them as his face morphed back and forth between his own horned mask and the skeletal mask of Garandō. He screamed in obvious fury before the skeletal mask suddenly cracked, sliding off and exploding in a puff of smoke on the floor. Ichigo was pale underneath but Isshin could see his eyes were wide, and brown. He heaved several deep breaths and then his eyes focused on his father. Beside him, Grimmjow and Gin both seemed to snap out of whatever trancelike state they were in and both fell backward onto their beds, completely unconscious. Ichigo stared at Isshin for a long moment.

"Hey, Pop," he said, smiling softly before his eyes rolled up and he fell backward onto the bed.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

It took almost a week before the trio woke up again. The first to wake had been Grimmjow, who had been nearly furious when he found out Ichigo was still unconscious and the shinigami hadn't "fixed" him. He would not calm until he was allowed to be in the room with him. Gin woke second, similarly worried and annoyed and managed to escape his own room when no one noticed to get in the room with Ichigo and Grimmjow. Unohana quickly gave up on trying to make them leave. It was the day after Gin had awoken that Urahara and Isshin stepped into Ichigo's room to see, to their great amusement, both Grimmjow and Gin had crawled into the bed with Ichigo.

"So, you were saying something about the fact they were now linked?" Isshin said quietly.

Urahara nodded. "What they did, they bonded themselves to him. Its more than just a link. There's no severing this connection, their very souls are intertwined. If another life awaits them someday, there may only be one soul instead of the three separate ones. It is on a level that goes beyond our knowledge."

Urahara saw Ichigo start to stir, and put his finger to his lips and motion Isshin to come outside so they could watch on the monitor. He nodded and moved out with him.

Ichigo sighed, eyes slowly opening in the dimly lit room. The fourth, he thought, and he felt so warm and good, he hummed.

"Ichi-pet?" came Gin's voice, and he saw that Gin was laying beside him.

"Hmm, hey," Ichigo said groggily.

Grimmjow grabbed his face and turned it toward where he was lying on the other side. "Hey, about damn time," he growled.

Ichigo smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I knew you'd want me to come back soon," he said, strangely not bothered by the fact he was tightly wedged between the two of them.

Gin smirked. "Now, about that promise I made to you…about impaling you again…and again…"

Ichigo frowned and looked at him and then blushed as he felt Gin's hand slide under the sheets to grasp his crotch. "Ah, oh, um…" he stammered, swallowing, but Grimmjow, glaring at Gin across the bed grabbed Ichigo's face and planted a deep kiss on him.

Gin laughed and outside, Isshin and Urahara turned off the monitor.


	11. The Dragon, The Snake, and the Panther

**Epilogue**

_The Dragon, the Snake, and the Panther_

* * *

"Ah," came the breathy response as Ichigo felt both sets of hands sliding up his sides.

Not much had changed, not really. Ichigo was still Ichigo. However, he'd become more than a little in love with his partners, perverted and horny as they both were most of the time. Most of the time, he found it hard to believe how he'd ended up here. Having one lover was hard, but dealing with two was sometimes more than he almost wanted to deal with some days. Of course, then there were days like today, when they were everything to him all at once and every problem he had seemed to evaporate as hands, lips, tongues, and breath exchanged between them.

Since things had come to fruition, he'd been stressed out a lot. Not going home was hard for him, and knowing that that was never going to change left him wanting to do it even more. Soul Society, though, had made sure to make sure that he had free access to his family and friends from the World of the Living, though they had to come to him. Who he was attached to, most of course, were Gin and Grimmjow. He couldn't get out of their sight without them flipping out on him. It was like the worst case of obsession ever, he thought to himself.

The various arrancar had all found their places. The beach where Ichigo had regained his power had been completed, a freshwater indoor sea with its own ecosystem thanks to Velocity and Mayuri helping create it. It had become a place where the shinigami and arrancar both would go. Some of the shinigami had to adjust to the fact not all the arrancar wore clothes to swim, others wore all their clothes, and some wore cobbled together bathing suits that they liked, no matter if they were intended for men or women in the world of the living. Some went to fish, and Ichigo found out his father enjoyed going there to fish and drink sake with Starrk and Kyrouku-taichou. Ichigo had been a few times, but Grimmjow and Gin, as usual, were overprotective when he left Soul Society. Of course, in the time they were there, they'd both managed to pin him and fuck him without anyone else being the wiser. He swore that the two of them were more obsessed with fucking than they were with his safety.

That wasn't even counting what happened when Shiro managed to figure out he could freely walk between Gin and Grimmjow's inner worlds… That had been exciting when Grimmjow had woke up telling Ichigo he did not what to know what had just happened between Pantera and Shiro. Likewise, Gin didn't want to explain what had happened when Shiro wandered into his world to meet up with Shinso. Shiro, however, was extremely pleased with himself, and decided that he liked the other two Zanpakutou spirits and things were good. He only commented with a lewd smile that they were both quite entertaining. Ichigo didn't ask anything else. He didn't want to know more details about Zanpakutou sex lives…it was hard enough dealing with his own insatiable partners.

Grimmjow bit into his neck, causing a shiver to run down Ichigo's spine as he sat between the two of them on the bed. All three had shed clothes faster than humanly possible because there had been an incident that had fired both Gin and Grimmjow up to the point that they had literally drug Ichigo back to their house and into the bed with the entire purpose to fuck him completely senseless.

Ichigo and his boys as he called them had been sitting in the middle of one of the open park areas. Ichigo's experience had left physical marks on him that had not gone away. His face remained marked with the red streaks that were on his mask, and the black marks on his chest had remained, as well as the spot where the hollow hole existed when he shifted into his vasto lorde mode. It was black like the lines over his shoulders, but it was more than that, it was almost there and not there at the same time. Now and then it seemed to give off a pulse of some sort that was barely discernable unless someone happened to be looking when it happened.

Not everyone in Soul Society had taken well to what had occurred. There had been many injured during Garandō's attack on the serietei, but luckily they had avoided fatalities with Orihime's help. Even though, there were some of the newer shinigami that were not happy that Ichigo had been accepted into the Serietei, let alone allowing an arrancar and one of the traitor Shinigami to return to live among them. It didn't matter, of course, how powerful Ichigo was, and it didn't matter how much they were told by the captains, there would still be those that wanted to cause trouble with Ichigo and his partners.

"Well, what have we here?" came a voice from behind the three of them.

They were sitting quietly, Ichigo laying with his head in Gin's lap and legs resting on Grimmjow's. Gin was running his fingers through Ichigo's hair slowly while Grimmjow was reading a book he'd gotten when he went back to the world of the living with Isshin to get some of Ichigo's things for him. Ichigo had a small sketchbook, and had been sketching again, this time, though; the images had quite a different theme to them. However, more than a few of them featured the horrific visage of Garandō and the various forms he'd taken both inside and outside Ichigo's mind.

Ichigo laid the book down on his legs and looked over behind them to see a group of a few shinigami, lower ranking, by the look, as they didn't have the zanpakutou yet by the looks.

"People trying to enjoy themselves in this park," Ichigo said with a sigh. It wasn't the first time someone had approached them.

"Ah, I see. People. You call yourselves people. Freaks, outcasts, monsters, that's more accurate, isn't it?" one of them said.

Ichigo felt Grimmjow's muscles start to tighten but it was Gin who spoke up. "Mah, mah, you children don't understand what you are doing, it is not in your best interest to antagonize my Ichi-pet," he said, smiling with that creepy uncanny way he had.

"Oh, I forgot, not only are you a freak, but you're fairy freaks."

Grimmjow sighed, putting his book on the ground and glancing over at them. "Look, your sou-taichou already said to leave us be. What has happened in the past is in the fucking past, okay?"

"A lot of people got hurt when he tore a hole through the dangai. He got a lot of people injured. And he should be right in the cell with Aizen and you two," the first one said.

"I wasn't exactly myself," Ichigo said, sighing, sliding the sketchbook off his lap to the ground and sitting up. "Aizen's hollow Garandō was controlling me. So the only person to blame for all of this is already captured and locked away. Aizen created me, the hollow that took me over, corrupted Gin, and created Grimmjow and forced the arrancar to do the things they did."

There was a murmur among the group of the shinigami. "That doesn't matter. You should all be destroyed. Anything touched by hollows should be destroyed."

Ichigo turned his head at them and sighed. "Come on, we should go."

"Yeah, leave, cowards, monsters, all of you," one of them said and Ichigo tilted his head to the side for a second, then started to giggle. Of course, the giggle wasn't Ichigo.

Grimmjow and Gin both scrambled away from their smaller lover. "Ah, Ichi-pet, don't do this…" Gin said, knowing that Shiro was still too unpredictable to allow out without strict controls.

"I'm fine," Ichigo said, turning back and winking one brown eye at Gin where the other had shifted into black and gold.

The group stepped back. They'd been confident, because they believed that if they provoked the three into fighting that they, being more powerful, would be punished. They didn't expect any other response.

"Look, you know what it's like to have your entire life fucked up because of what you are? What you have to deal with when you see ghosts as a child and draw hollows like a goddamned magnet because some fucker like Aizen decided to dick around with hollows and screwed up your mother and fucked up your pop because he had to give up being a fucking captain's position to save her. Then I get stuck with saving Soul Society's entire existence, and lose the fucking powers I didn't ask for in the first place, and then get kidnapped and taken and forced to be a force of destruction. And yet, here I am, still human. Still who I am, despite the fact that I could destroy everything without a blink of my eye between all my powers."

Ichigo reached behind him and took Gin's hand and smiled. "And you would say such things against Gin Ichimaru, because he sacrificed everything he was to save you by acting the part of the good subordinate to the traitor. He gave up everything and was branded a traitor just to try and protect you." Ichigo smiled at him. "And he's a pervert, whatever, he's mine now," he said, squeezing Gin's hand as Gin smirked.

"Mah, Ichi-pet…" he said and Ichigo leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"And my Grimmy," Ichigo said turning and snagging the other hand. Grimmjow arched a brow at him. "He did everything he could to just fight the most powerful thing in the world, to prove himself, to make himself more than he was, and then he gets me in more ways than he ever imagined. He gave up much to help me, and Soul Society."

Ichigo smiled. "And if that bothers you, I don't care. They're mine now, and no one says anything about them, or I will deal with them. Say what you will about the monster I am. I am a monster, I know that. I didn't ask to be. But don't say anything about them. They've done nothing by try and help me, and Soul Society."

With that, Ichigo had turned and started walking off. Gin grabbed Ichigo's sketchbook, and Grimmjow his book just as one of those gathered shunpo'd in front of Ichigo and put his hands on him to stop him. The moment had been just that, a moment, and the other shinigami found himself on his back, facing a fully transformed vasto lorde form of Ichigo staring at a building cero between his horns, the massive draconic wings spread wide behind him.

Gin and Grimmjow both stared, not believing how fast it had happened, or the fact there was no change in Ichigo's reaitsu. It was completely controlled.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone, and I could easily," Ichigo said, his voice wavering as the cero winked out and his form shifted back to his shinigami one.

Gin and Grimmjow both moved forward as one, each one grabbing one of his arms and lifting him up between them. Ichigo yelped as they drug carried him, feet kicking at the ground and annoyed.

"The hell! Put me down! Now! Put me down!" he said, growling under his breath, realizing that they had now intention to do that at all.

So that was how he ended up sitting between his lovers, being bitten, licked, and kissed by two very horny and very insistent sets of lips.

"You were so bad, you know you aren't supposed to do that, Ichi-pet," Gin whispered from behind him, sliding his hands down his arms and pulling them behind him, silently wrapping an obie around them tightly.

Grimmjow was kissing him when Gin did it and instead of letting go when Ichigo wanted to say something he planted both hands on his cheeks and held him in the kiss even longer when Ichigo struggled lightly against the tie. "Hm," Gin muttered. "You need to be taught a lesson, Ichi-pet," he muttered, sliding his hands under Ichigo's legs and lifting him up onto his lap. Ichigo felt his cock pressing against his back and knew he was going to slide into him first this time.

Grimmjow let go of his face and grinned, and before Ichigo could say anything he took another obi and gagged him. "Hm, yah, we're gonna give you a good punishing," he said, smiling, sliding a hand under him and sliding two fingers into him without warning. Ichigo moaned against the gag as he let his head fall back on Gin's shoulder.

After a few moments, Grimmjow pulled his fingers out and helped Gin slide inside him easily. It wasn't like he needed much preparation since these two were always horny. Ichigo moaned as Grimmjow leaned over and began sucking on his nipples until Ichigo's cock was throbbing. Grimmjow grinned again and slid something down over Ichigo's cock, a rubber ring. Ichigo's eyes went wide when he couldn't come and Grimmjow chortled, before pushing Ichigo's thighs wider. Ichigo realized what he was going to do about a second before he slammed his own cock inside him with Gin. Ichigo's eyes went wide and for a moment he struggled as Grimmjow worked himself all the way inside. Ichigo whimpered and almost wanted them to stop but he really didn't. He could have gotten the bindings off with no problems. Instead he melted into Gin's body as Grimmjow began thrusting from the front, sliding back and forth with Gin, filling him and stretching him. His own cock was throbbing and aching for release.

"Ah, Ichi-pet, you little slutty whore," Gin whispered in his ear. "Look at you, taking two cocks up your little slutty ass. Look at that…and Grimmy is so thick too…"

Ichigo moaned and panted as they seemed to be hitting every sensitive point inside him all at once. Grimmjow reached down and slipped the rubber ring off Ichigo and he screamed against his gag as he came immediately, his body clamping down on Gin and Grimmjow and bringing them both over the edge with him.

A few moments later, Ichigo was snuggled between them, half asleep, when Gin's hand slid down his back and started probing him again. He started to mutter something but he found himself rolled onto his back with Gin slamming into him again. He gasped and felt him pull his legs to sit on his shoulder. Ichigo was sure that Gin had no such thing as a refractory period. He moaned again as Grimmjow kissed his chest, then kissed his way down to his cock and took it into his mouth. Ichigo felt his crest coming and went over, letting Grimmjow bring him the rest of the way and Gin went off inside him again.

An hour after their first tumble, Ichigo laid in the center of the bed on his stomach, exhausted to the point he couldn't move while Gin and Grimmjow seemed to have finally been sated. It had taken another go round with each of them, another with them both at the same time, and a frotting session in between, but he thought they were finally done. At least he hoped they were. His ass felt like it was never going to be the same.

"You…two…are horrible…" Ichigo muttered as he felt Gin rubbing his ass again.

"Ah, Ichi-pet, you love it," Gin said, kissing him on his head gently. "And you cannot expect us not to get worked up when you act like that in front of us."

Ichigo groaned. "So I act tough and you two have to assert your dominance and fuck me until I can't walk for a week to show me who's in charge?" he muttered into the pillow and then yelped when Gin and Grimmjow both pulled their hands back and slapped him hard on his ass.

"Yeah," Grimmjow said, kissing his other cheek. "Pretty much. You may be able to tear entire worlds apart, but you're our little slut."

Ichigo hummed assent as he snuggled in between them as sleep began to fall on them all. It wasn't easy. And it wasn't going to be easy again. But he was happy.


End file.
